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DREAM LIFE: 
3. Jable 

OF THE SEASONS. 






We are such stuff 

As di-eams are made of; and our little life 
Is rounded with a sleep.— Tempest, 



New York: 
1851. 



^*V^ 4. 



n 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1861, by 

Donald G. Mitchell, 

In th« Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the 

Southern Disti-ict of New York. 



SOURCE UNKNOWr^ 
MAY 2 8 1925 



NEW YORK: 
STEBEOTTPBD BT 

c. w. benedict; 

201 WILLIAM BT. 



DEDICATORY LETTER 



ADDRESSED TO 



WASHINGTON IRVING. 



My Dear Sir: 

I DO not know to whom I could more 
appropriately dedicate this little hook than to 
one who has been so long my teacher; and 
who has seemed to be, so long, my friend. 

It is true, that until six months ago, I had 
never the honor of meeting with you : but, 
there are thousands. Sir, who have never seen 
you who yet know you, and esteem you, as 
fully as myself. 



ii D E D 1 C A T O II Y L E T 1^ E R . 

If I have attained to any facility in the use 
of language, or have gained any fitness of 
expression, in which to dress my thoughts, — I 
know not to what writer of the English 
language, I am more indebted, than to you. 
And if I liave shown — as I have tried to 
show — a truthfulness of feeling, that is not 
lighted by any counterfeit of passion, but 
rather, by a close watchfulness of nature, and a 
cordial sympathy with human suffering — I 
know not to what man's heart, that truthful- 
ness will come home sooner, than to your's. 

Believe me. Dear Sir, it is from no wish to 
associate my name with the names of the 
great, that I ask your acceptance of this little 
token of respect. My aims are humbler than 
this : I would simply pay homage to the 
Author, who has wrought our language into 
the most exquisite forms of beauty ; and to the 
man, who has touched our hearts, with the 
tenderness of a friend. 



Dedicatory Letter. 



m 



And if I might hope, that this simple mark 
of 111}^ admiration, and of my esteem, would 
commend me to your charity — to say nothing 
of your reo^ard — it is all that I would ask. 



Donald G. Mitchell. 



CONTEXTS. 



INTRODUCTORY. 

I. With my Aunt Tabithy, . . . . 11 

II. With my Reader, . . ; . . 20 



DREAMS OF BOYHOOD. 

Spring, 33 

I. Rain ra the Garret, .... 38 

II. School Dreams, 45 

III. Boy Sentiment, ...... 56 



C O i\ '1 E N 1 S . 



IV. A Friend Made and Friend Lost, 
V. Boy RkligioxN, 
VI. A New England Squire, - 
VII. The Country Church, 
VIII. A Home Scene, .... 



PAGE 

62 

74 

82 

94 

103 



DREAMS OF YOUTH. 



Summer 




. . . 113 


I. 


Cloister Life, 


. 


120 


11. 


First Ambition, . 


■ 


132 


111. 


College Romance, 


. 


138 


IV. 


First Look at the 


V.'.r.LD, 


150 


V. 


A Broken Houie, 




161 


VI. 


Family Confidence, 


. 


. 170 


VII. 


A Good Wife, 


. 


178 


VIII. 


A Broken Hope, 


. 


186 



DREAMS OF MANHOOD. 



Autumn, .... 

I. Pride of Manliness, . 



199 
204 





Contents. 


vii 

PAGE 


11. 


Man of the World, . 


211 


in 


JMani.y Hope, 


219 


IV. 


Manly Lovk, .... 


. 228 


V. 


Chker and Children 


234 


VI. 


Dream of Darkness, 


243 


VII. 


Peace, 


251 



DREAMS OF AGE. 



Winter, 

I. What is Gone, . 
II. What is Left, 
III. Grief and Joy of Age, 
iV. The End of Dreams, 



261 
265 
271 
277 
283 



INTRODUCTORY. 



I. 

With mt Aunt Tabithy. 

PSHAW !— said my Aunt Tabithy,— have 
you not done with dreaming ? 

My Aunt Tabithy, though an excellent, and most 
notable person, loves occasionally a quiet bit of satii-e. 
And when I told her, that I was sharpening my 
pen for a new story of those dreamy fancies, and 
half experiences, which lie grouped along the journeying 
hours of my solitary life, she smiled as if in derision. 

" Ah, Isaac," said she, " all that is exhaustod : 

you have I'lnig so many changes on your hopes and 



12 Dream-Life. 

your dreams, that you have nothing left, but to make 
them real if you can." 

It is very idle to get angry with a good-natured old 
lady : I did better than this : — I made her listen 
to me. 

Exhausted, do you say. Aunt Tabithy ? Is life 

then exhausted, is hope gone out, is fancy dead ? 

No, no. Hope and the world are full ; and he who 
drags into book-pages a phase or two of the great life 
of passion, of endurance, of love, of sorrow, is but 
wetting a feather, in the sea that breaks ceaselessly 
along the great shore of the years. Every man's 
heart is a living drama ; every death is a drop-scene ; 
every book only a faint foot-light to throw a little flicker 
on the stage. 

There is no need of wandering widely to catch 
incident or adventure : they are evei-jrvvhere about us ; 
each day is a succession of escapes and joys ; — not 
perhaps clear to the world, but brooding in our thought, 
and living in our brain. From the very fij'st, Angels 
and Devils are busy with us, and we are struggling 
against them, and for them. 

No, no. Aunt Tabithy, — this life of musing does not 
exhaust so easily. It is like the springs on the farm- 
land, that are fed with all the showers and the dews of 
the year, and that from the narrow fissures of the rock, 
send up streams continually : — or it is like the deep 



Introductory. ' 18 

well in the meadow, where one may see stars at noon — 
when no stars are shining. 

What is Reverie, and what are these Day-dreams, 
but fleecy cloud-drifts that float eternally, and eternally 
change shapes, upon the great over-arching sky of 
thought ? You may seize the strong outlines that the 
passion breezes of to-day shall thi-ow into their figures ; 
but to-morrow may breed a whirlwind that will chase 
swift, gigantic shadows over the heaven of your 
thought, and change the whole landscape of your life. 

Dream-land will never be exhausted, until we enter 
the land of dreams ; and until, in " shufflins: oflf this 
mortal coil," thought will become fact, and all facts will 
be only thought. 

As it is, I can conceive no mood of mind more in 
keeping with what is to follow upon the grave, than 
those fancies which warp our frail hulks toward the 
ocean of the Infinite ; and that so sublimate the 
realities of this being, that they seem to belong to 
that shadowy realm, where every day's journey is 
leading. 

It was warm weather ; and my aunt was dozing. 
" What is this all to be about ?" said she, recovering 
her knitting needle. 

" About love, and toil and duty, and sorrow," 
said I. 



14 Dream-Life. 

My aunt laid down her knitting, looked at me over 
the rim of her spectacles, and took snufF. 

I said nothing. 

" How many times have you been in love, Isaac ?" 
said she. 

It was now my turn to say " Pshaw !" 

Judging from her look of assurance, I could not 
possibly have made a more satisfactory reply. 

My aunt finished the needle she was upon — smoothed 
the stocking leg over her knee, and looking at me with 
a very comical expression, said, — " Isaac, you are a sad 
fellow !" 

I did not like the tone of this : it sounded very much 
as if it would have been in the mouth of any one else 
' bad fellow.' 

And she went on to ask me in a very bantering way, 
if my stock of youthful loves was not nearly exhausted ; 
and she cited the episode of the fair-haired Enrica, as 
perhaps the most tempting that I could draw from my 
experience. 

A better man than myself, — if he had only a fair 
share of vanity, — would have been nettled at this ; and 
I rephed somewhat tartly, that I had never professed 
to write my experiences. These might be more or less 
tempting ; but certainly, if they were of a kind which 
I have ffttempted to portray in the characters of Bella, 
or of Carry, neither my Auiit Tabithy nor any one else, 



Introductory. 15 

should have learned such truth from any book of mine. 
There are griefs too sacred to be babbled to the world ; 
and there may be loves, which one would foi'bear to 
whisper even to a friend. 

No, no, — imagination has been playing pranks with 
memory ; and if I have made the feeling real, I am 
content that the facts should be false. Feeling indeed 
has a higher truth in it, than circumstance. It appeals 
to a larger jury, for acquittal : it is approved or con- 
demned by a better judge. And if I can catch this 
bolder and richer truth of feeling, I will not mind if 
the types of it are all fabrications. 

If I run over some sweet experience of love, (my 
Aunt Tabithy brightened a little) must I make good 
the fact that the loved one lives, and expose her name 
and qualities, to make your sympathy sound ? Or 
shall I not rather be working upon higher and hoher 
ground, if I take the passion for itself, and so weave it 
into words, that you, and every willing sufferer may 
recognize the fervor, and forget the personahty ? 

Life after all is but a bundle of hints, each suggesting 
actual and positive developement, but rarely reaching it. 
And as I recal these hints, and in fancy, trace them to 
their issues, I am as truly dealing with life, as if my lih 
had dealt them all to me. 

This is what I would be doing in the present book ; — ■ 
I would catch up here and there the shreds of feeling, 



16 Dream-Life, 

which the brambles and roughnesses of the world have 
left tangling on my heart, and weave them out into 
those soft, and perfect tissues, which — if the world had 
been only a little less rough, — might now perhaps 
enclose my heart altogether. 

" Ah," said my Aunt Tabithy, as she smoothed the 
stocking leg again, with a sigh, — " there is after all but 
one youth-time : and if you put down its memories 
once, you can find no second growth." 

My Aunt Tabithy was wrong. There is as much 
growth in the thoughts and feelings that run behind us, 
as in those that run before us. You may make a rich, 
full picture of your childhood to-day ; but let the hour 
go by, and the darkness stoop to your pillow with its 
miUion shapes of the past, and my word for it, you 
shall have some flash of childhood lighten upon you, 
that was unknown to your busiest thought of the 
morning. 

Let a week go by ; and in some interval of care, as 
you recal the smile of a mother, or some pale sister who 
is dead, a new crowd of memories will rush upon your 
soul, and leave their traces in such tears as will make 
you kinder and better for days and weeks. Or you 
shall assist at some neighbor funeral, where the little 
dead one — (like one you have seen before) — shall hold 
in its tiny grasp — (as you have taught little dead hands 
to do) — fresh flowers, laughing flowers, lying lightly on 



Introductoky. 17 

the white robe of the dear child — all pale — cold — 
silent 

I had touched my Aunt Tabithy : she had dropped 
a stitch in her knitting. I beheve she was weeping. 

— Aye, this brain of ours is a master-worker, whose 
appliances we do not one half know ; and this heart of 
ours is a rare storehouse, furnishing the brain with new 
material every hour of our lives ; and their limits we 
shall not know, until they shall end — together. 

Nor is there, as many faint-hearts imagine, but one 
phase of earnestness in our life of feeling. One train 
of deep emotion cannot fill up the heart : it radiates 
like a star, God-ward and earth-ward. It spends and 
reflects all ways. Its force is to be reckoned not 
so much by token, as by capacity. Facts are the 
poorest and most slumberous evidences of passion, or 
of affection. True feeling is ranging everywhere ; 
whereas your actual attachments are too apt to be tied 
to sense. 

A single affection may indeed be true, earnest and 
absorbing ; but such an one after all, is but a type — 
and if le object be worthy, a glorious type — of the 
great book of feeling : it is only the vapor from the 
cauldron of the heart, and bears no deeper relation to 
its exhaustless sources, than the letter which my pen 
makes, bears to the thought that inspires it, — or than a 
single morning strain of your orioles and thrushes, bears 



18 Dream-Life. 

to that wide bird-chorus, which is making every sun- 
rise — a worship, and eveiy grove — a temple ! 

My Aunt Tabithy nodded. 

Nor is this a mere bachelor fling against constancy. 
I can believe, Heaven knows, in an unalterable and 
unflinching afiection, which neither desires nor admits 
the prospect of any other. But when one is tasking his 
brain to talk for his heart, — when he is not writing 
positive history, but only making mention (as it were) 
of the heart's capacities, who shall say that he has 
reached the fullness, — that he has exhausted the stock 
of its feeling, or that he has touched its highest notes ? 
It is true there is but one heart in a man to be stirred ; 
but every stir creates a new combination of feehng, that 
hke the turn of a kaleidoscope will show some fresh 
color, or form. 

A bachelor to be sure has a marvellous advantage in 
this ; and with the tenderest influences once anchoi-ed 
in the bay of marriage, there is little disposition to scud 
off under each pleasant ])reeze of feeling. Nay, I can 
even imagine — perhaps somewhat captiously — that after 
marriage, feeling would become a habit, a r'ch and 
holy habit certainly, but yet a habit, which weakens the 
omnivorous grasp of the aflections, and schools one to a 
unity of emotion, that doubts and ignores the prompt- 
ness and variety of impulse, which we bachelors 



Introductory. 19 

My aunt nodded again. 

Could it bo that she approved what I had been 
saying ? I hardly knew. 

Poor old lady, — she did not know herself. She was 



n. 

With my Reader. 

HAVING silenced my Aunt Tabithy, I shall be 
generous enough in my triumph, to offer an 
explanatory chat to my reader. 

This is a history of Dreams ; and there will be those 
who will sneer at such a histoiy, as the work of a 
dreamer. So indeed it is ; and you, my courteous 
reader, are a dreamer too ! 

You would perhaps hke to find your speculations 
about wealth, marriage or influence, called by some 
be/er name than Dreams. You would hke to see the 
history of them — if written at all — baptized at the font 
of your own vanity, with some such title as — life's 
cares, or life's work. If there had been a philosophic 
naming to my observations, you might have reckoned 



With my Reader. 21 

them good : as it is, you count them all bald and 
palpable fiction. 

But is it so ? I care not how matter of fact you 
may be, you have in your own life, at some time, 
proved the very truth of what I have set down: 
and the chances are, that even now, gray as you may 
be, and economic as you may be, and devotional as you 
pretend to be, you light up your Sabbath reflections 
with just such dreams of wealth, of per centages, or of 
family, as you will find scattered over these pages. 

I am not to be put aside with any talk about stocks, 
and duties, and respectability : all these though very 
eminent matters, are but so many types in the volume 
of your thought ; and your eager resolves about them, 
are but so many ambitious waves, breaking up from 
that great sea of dreamy speculation, that has spread 
over your soul, from its first start into the realm of 
Consciousness. 

No man's brain is so dull, and no man's eye so 
l)lind, that they cannot catch food for dreams. Each 
little episode of hfe is full, had we but the perception 
of its fullness. There is no such thing as blank, in the 
world of thought. Every action and emotion have 
their development growing and gaining on the soul. 
Every aflection has its lears and smiles. Nay, the very 
material world is full of meaning, and by suggesting 



22 Dream-Life. 

thought, is making us what we are, and what we 
will be. 

The sparrow that is twittering on the edge of my 
balcony, is caUing up to me this moment, a world of 
memories that reach over half my life time, and a 
world of hope that stretches farther than any flight of 
sparrows. The rose-tree which shades his mottled coat 
is full of buds and blossoms ; and each bud and 
blossom is a token of promise, that has issues covering 
hfe, and reaching beyond death. The quiet sunshine 
beyond the flower and beyond the sparrow, — glistening 
upon the leaves, and playing in delicious waves of 
warmth over the reeking earth, is lighting both heart 
and hope, and quickening into activity a thousand 
thoughts of what has been, and of what will be. The 
meadow stretching away under its golden flood — 
waving with grain, and with the feathery blossoms of 
the grass, and golden butter cups, and white, nodding 
daisies, comes to my eye hke the lapse of fading 
childhood, — studded here and there with the bright 
blossoms of joy, crimsoned all over with the flush of 
health, and enamelled with memories that perfume the 
soul. The blue hills beyond, with deep blue shadows 
gathered in their bosom, lie before me hke mountains 
of years, over which I shall chmb through shadows to 
the slope of Age, and go down to the deeper shadows 
of Death. 



W I T II MY Reader. 23 

Nor are dreams without their variety, whatever your 
chai'acter may be. I care not how much, in the pride 
of your practical judgment, or in your learned fancies, 
you may sneer at any dream of love, and reckon it all a 
poet's fiction : there are times when such dreams come 
over you like a summer cloud, and almost stifle you 
with their warmth. 

Seek as you will for increase of lands or moneys, and 
there are moments when a spark of some giant mind 
will flash over your cravings, and wake your soul 
suddenly to a quick, and yearning sense of that 
influence which is begotten of intellect ; and you task 
your dreams — as I have copied them here — to build 
before you the pleasures of such a renown. 

I care not how worldly you may be : there are times 
when all distinctions seem like dust, and when at the 
graves of the great, you dream of a coming countiy, 
where your proudest hopes shall be dimmed forever. 

Married or unmarried, young or old, poet or worker, 
you are still a dreamer, and will one time know, and 
feel, that your hfe is but a dream. Yet you call this 
fiction : you stave off the thoughts in print which come 
over you in reverie. You will not admit to the eye 
what is true to the heart. Poor weakling, and 
worldling, — you are not strong enough to face yom*- 
self! 

You will read perhaps with smiles : you will possibly 



24 Dream-Life, 

pi-aise the ingenuity : you will talk, with a lip schooled 
against the slightest quiver, of some bit of pathos, and 
say that it is — well done. Yet why is it well done ? — 
only because it is stolen from your very life and heart. 
It is good, because it is so common : — ingenious, 
because it is so honest : — well-conceived, because it is 
not conceived at all. 

There are thousands of mole-eyed people, who count 
all passion in print — a lie : — people who will grow into 
a rage at trifles, and weep in the dark, and love in 
secret, and hope without mention, and cover it all 
under the cloak of what they call — propriety. I can 
see before me now some gray-haired old gentleman, 
very money-getting, very cori-ect, very cleanly, who 
reads the morning paper with unction, and his Bible 
with determination : who listens to dull sermons with 
patience, and who prays with quiet self-applause, — and 
yet there are moments belonging to his life, when his 
curdled affections yearn for something that they have 
not, when his avarice oversteps all the command- 
ments, — when his pride builds castles full of splendor ; 
and yet put this before his eye, and he reads with the 
most careless air in the world, and condemns as arrant 
fiction, what cannot be proved to the elders. 

We do not like to see our emotions unriddled : it is 
not agreeable to the proud man to find his weaknesses 
exposed : it is shocking to the disappointed lover to st'c 



With my Reader. 25 

his heart laid bare : it is a great grief to the pining 
maiden to witness the exposure of her loves. We do 
not like our fancies painted : we do not contrive them 
for rehearsal : our dreams are private, and when they 
are made public, we disown them. 

I sometimes think that I must be a very honest 
fellow, for wTiting down those fancies which every one 
else seems afraid to whisper. I shall at least, come in 
for my share of the odium in entertaining such fancies : 
indeed I shall expect the charge of entertaining them 
exclusively ; and shall scarce expect to find a single 
fellow-confessor, unless it be some pure, and innocent 
thoughted girl, who will say inccavi^ to — here and 
there — a single rainbow fancy. 

Well, I can bear it ; but in bearing it, I shall be 
consoled with the reflection that I have a great 
company of fellow-sufferers, who lack only the honesty 
to tell me of their sympathy. It will even relieve in 
no small degree my burden, to watch the eflbrt they 
will take to conceal, what I have so boldly divulged. 

Nature is very much the same thing in one man, that 
it is in another : and as I have already said. Feeling 
has a higher truth in it, than circumstance. Let it 
only be touched fairly and honestly, and the heart of 
humanity answers ; but if it be touched foully or 
one-sidedly, you may find here and there a lame-souled 



26 Dream-Life. 

creature who will give response, but there is no heart 
throb in it. 

Of one thing I am sure : — if my pictures are fair, 
worthy, and hearty, you must see it in the reading: 
but if they are forced and hard, no amount of kindness 
can make you feel their truth as I want them felt. 

I make no self-praise out of this : if feeling has been 
honestly set down, it is only in virtue of a native 
impulse, over which I have altogether too little control ; 
but if it is set down badly, I have wronged Nature, 
and, (as Nature is kind) I have wronged myself. 

A great many inquisitive people will, I do not doubt, 
be asking after all this prelude, if ]"ny pictures are true 
pictures? The question, — the courteous reader will 
allow me to say, — is an impertinent one. It is but a 
shabby truth that wants an author's affidavit to make it 
trust-worthy. I shall not help my story by any such 
poor support. If there are not enough elements of 
truth, honesty and nature in my pictures, to make them 
believed, they shall have np oath of mine to bolster 
them up. 

I have been a sufferer in this way before now ; and a 
little book that I had the whim to publish a year since, 
has been set down by many as an arrant piece of 
imposture. Claiming sympathy as a Bachelor, I have 
been recklessly set down as a cold, undeserving man of 



With my Reader. 2*7 

family ! My story of troubles and loves has been 
sneered at, as the sheerest gammon. 

But among this crowd of cold-blooded critics, it was 
l)]easant to hear of one or two pursy old fellows who 
railed at me, for winning the affections of a sweet Italian 
girl, and then leaving her to pine in discontent ! Yet 
in the ftice of this, an old companion of mine in Rome, 
with whom I accidentally met the other day, — wondered 
how on earth I could have made so tempting a story 
out of the matronly and black-haired spinster, with 
whom I happened to be quartered in the Eternal City ! 

I shall leave my critics to settle such differences 
between themselves ; and consider it f^ir better to bear 
with slanders from both sides of the house, than to 
bewray the pretty tenderness of the pursy old gentle- 
men, or to cast a doubt upon the practical testimony of 
my quondam companion. Both give me high and 
judicious- compliment — all the more grateful because 
only half deserved. For I never yet was conscious — 
alas, that the confession should be forced from me ! — 
of winning the heart of any maiden whether native, or 
Italian ; and as for such delicacy of imagination as to 
work up a lovely damsel out of the withered remnant 
that forty odd years of Italian hfe can spare, I can 
assure my middle-aged friends, (and it may serve as a 
caveat) — I can lay no claim to it whatever. 

The iroul)lc has been, that tlioso who have believed 



28 Dream-Life. 

one passage have discredited another ; and those who 
have sympathized with rae in trifles, have deserted me 
when affairs grew earnest. I have had sympathy 
enongh with my married griefs ; but when it came to 

the perplexing torments of my single life not a 

weeper could I find ! 

I would suggest to those who intend to beUeve only 
half of HDy present book, that they exercise a little 
discretion in their choice. I am not fastidious in the 
matter ; and only ask them to beheve what counts 
most toward the goodness of humanity, and to discredit 
— if they will persist in it — only what tells badly for 
our common nature. The man or the w^oman who 
beheves well, is apt to work well ; and Faith is as much 
the key to happiness here, as it is the key to happiness 
hereafter. 

I have only one thing more to say, before I get upon 
my story. A great many sharp-eyed people, who have 
a horror of light reading — by which they mean what- 
ever does not make mention of stocks, cottons, or moral 
homilies, — will find much fault with my book for its 
ephemeral character. 

I am sorry that I cannot gratify such : homilies are 
not at all in my habit ; and it does seem to me an 
exhausting way of disposing of a good moral, to 
hammer it down to a single point, so that there shall be 
only one chance of driving it home. For my own 



W I I- H xi V Head k r . 20 

pai-t, I count it a great deal better 23liilosopliy to fuse it, 
and raiify it, so that it shall spread out into every 
crevice of a story, and give a color and a taste, as it 
were, to the whole mass. 

I know there are very good people, who if they 
cannot lay their finger on so much doctrine set down in 
old foshioned phrase, will never get an inkling of it at 
all. With such people, goodness is a thing of under- 
standing, more than of feehng ; and all their morality 
has its action in the brain. 

God forbid that I should sneer at this terrible 
infirmity, which Providence has seen fit to inflict : God 
forbid too, that I should not be grateful to the same 
kind Providence, for bestowing upon others among his 
creatures a more genial apprehension of true goodness, 
and a hearty sympathy with every shade of human 
kindness ! 

But in all this, I am not making out a case for my 
own correct teaching, or insinuating the propriety of 
my tone. I shall leave the book in this regard, to 
speak for itself; and whoever feels himself growing 
worse for the reading, I advise to lay it down. It ^vill 
be very harmless on the shelf, however it may be in the 
hand. 

I shall lay no claim to the title of moralist, teacher, 
cr romancist : — my thoughts stai-t plcc^usant pictures to 
my mind ; and in a o-arrulous humor, I put my finger 



30 Dkeam-Life. 

in the button-hole of my indulgent friend, and tell him 
some of them, — giving him leave to quit me whenever 
he chooses. 

Or, if a lady is my listener, let her fancy me only an 
honest, simple-hearted fellow, whose familiarities are so 
innocent that she can pardon them ; — taking her hand 
in his, and talking on ; — sometimes looking in her eyes, 
and then looking into the sunshine for relief; — some^ 
times prosy with narrative, and then sharpening up my 
matter with a few touches of honest pathos; — let her 
imagine this, I say, and we may become the most 
excellent friends in the world. 



Spring; 

JBrcams of Bonljoob. 



DREAMS OF BOYHOOD. 



Spring. 

THE old chroniclers made the year begin in the 
season of frosts ; and they have launched ns 
upon the current of the months, from the snowy banks 
of January. I love better to count time, from spring 
to spring ; it seems to me far more cheerful, to reckon 
the year by blossoms, than by blight. 

Bernardin de St. Pierre, in his sweet story of Vir- 
ginia, makes the bloom of the cocoa-tree, or the growth 
of the banana, a yearly and a loved monitor of the 
passage of her life. How cold and cheei'lcss in the 
comparison, would be the icy chronology of the North ; 

So many years have I seen the lakes locked, 

and the foliao-e die ! 



34 D R E A M - L T F E . 

The budding niid blooming- of spring, seem to be- 
long proi^erly to tlie opening of tlie months. It is the 
season of the quickest expansion, of the warmest blood, 
of the readiest growth ; it is the boy-age of the year. 
The birds sing in chorus in the spi'ing — ^just as chil- 
dren prattle ; the brooks run full — like the overflow of 
young hearts ; the showers drop easily — as young tears 
flow ; and the whole sky is as capricious as the mind 
of a boy. 

Between tears and smiles, the year, like the child, 
struggles into the warmth of life. The old year, — say 
what the ch.ronologists will, — lingers upon the very lap 
of spring ; and is only f^iirly gone, when the blossoms 
of April have strewn their pall of glory upon his tomb, 
and the blue-birds have chanted his requiem. 

It always seems to me as if an access of life came 
with the melting of the winter's snows ; and as if every 
rootlet of grass that hfted its first green blade from the 
matted debris of the old year's decay, bore my spirit 
upon it, nearer to the largess of Heaven. 

I love to trace the break of spring step by step : I 
love even those long rain-storms that sap the icy for- 
tresses of the lingering winter, — that melt the snows 
upon the hills, and swell the mountain-brooks ; — that 
make the pools heave up their glassy cerements of 
ice, and hurry down the crashing fragments into the 
wastes of, ocean. 



S P R 1 N u . 35 

I love the gentle thaws that you can tiace, day by 
day, by the stained snow-banks, shrinking from the 
grass ; and by the gentle di-ip of the cottage-eaves. I 
love to search out the sunny slopes by a southern wall, 
where the reflected sun does double duty to the earth, 
and where the frail anemone, or the faint blush of the 
arbutus, in the midst of the bleak March atmosphere, 
will touch your heart, like a hope of Heaven, in a field 
of graves ! Later come those soft, smoky days, when 
the patches of winter grain show green under the 
shelter of leafless woods, and the last snow-drifts, re- 
duced to shrunken skeletons of ice, lie upon the slope 
of northern hills, leaking away their life. 

Then, the grass at your door grows into the color of 
the sprouting grain, and the buds upon the lilacs swell, 
and burst. The peaches bloom upon the wall, and the 
plums wear bodices of white. The sparkhng oriole 
picks string for his hammock on the sycamore, and the 
sparrows twitter in pairs. The old elms throw down 
their dingy flowers, and color their spray with green ; 
and the brooks, where you throw your worm oi' the 
minnow, float down whole fleets of the crimson blos- 
soms of the maple. Finally, the oaks step into the 
opening quadrille of spring, with greyish tufts of a 
modest verdure, which, by and by, will be long and 
glossy leaves. The dog-wood pitches his broad, white 
tent, in the edge of the forest ; the dandelions lie 



36 Dream-Life. 

along the hillocks, like stars in a sky of green ; and 
the wild cheny, growing in all the hedge-rows, without 
other culture than God's, hfts up to Him, thankfully, 
its tremulous white fingers. 

Amid all this, come the rich rains of spring. The 
affections of a boy grow up with tears to water them ; 
and the year blooms with showers. But the clouds 
hover over an April sky, timidly — hke shadows upon 
innocence. The showers come gently, and drop daintily 
to the eai'th, — with now and then a glimpse of sun- 
shine to make the drops bright — like so many tears of 

Joy. 

The rain of winter is cold, and it comes in bitter 
scuds that bhnd you ; but the rain of April steals 
upon you coyly, half reluctantly, — yet lovingly — like 
the steps of a bride to the Altar. 

It does not gather like the storm-clouds of winter, 
grey and heavy along the horizon, and creep with 
subtle and insensible approaches (like age) to the very 
zenith ; but there are a score of white-winged swim- 
mers afloat, that your eye has chased, as you lay 
fatigued with the delicious languor of an April sun ; — 
nor have you scarce noticed that a little bevy of those 
floating clouds had grouped together in a sombre 
company. But presently, you see across the fields, the 
dark grey streaks sti-etching like lines of mists, from the 
green bosom of the valloy, to that sjiot of sky where the 



Spring. 37 

company of clouds is loitering ; and with an easy- 
shifting of the helm, the fleet of swimmers come 
drifting over you, and drop their burden into the danc- 
ing pools, and make the flowers glisten, and the eaves 
drip with their crystal bounty. 

The cattle linger still, cropping the new-come grass ; 
and childhood laughs joyously at the warm rain ; — or 
under the cottage roof, catches witli eager ear, the pat- 
ter of its fall. 

And with that patter on the roof, — so like to 

the patter of childish feet — my story of boyish dreams 
shall begin. 



KaiN in the GrARRET. 

IT is an old garret with big, brown rafters ; and the 
boards between are stained darkly with the rain- 
storms of fifty years. And as the sportive April 
shower quickens its flood, it seems as if its torrents 
would come dashing through the shingles, upon you, 
and upon your play. But it will not ; for you know 
that the old roof is strong ; and that it has kept you, 
and all that love you, for long years from the rain, and 
from the cold : you know that the hardest storms of 
winter will only make a little oozing leak, that trickles 
down the brown stains, — like tears. 

You love that old garret roof ; and you nestle down 
under its slope, with a sense of its protecting power 
that no castle walls can give to your maturer years. 



Rain in the Garret. 39 

Aye, your heart clings in boyhood to the roof-tree of 
the old family garret, with a grateful affection, and an 
earnest confidence, that the after years — whatever may 
be their successes, or their honors — can never re-create. 
Under the roof-tree of his home, the boy feels safe : 
and where, in the whole realm of life, with its bitter 
toils, and its bitterer temptations, will he feel safe 
again ? 

But this you do not know. It seems only a grand 
old place ; and it is capital fun to search in its corners, 
and drag out some bit of quaint old furniture, with a 
leg broken, and lay a cushion across it, and fix your 
reins upon the lion's claws of the feet, and then — 
gallop away ! And you offer sister Nelly a chance, if 
she will be good ; and throw out very patronizino- 
words to little Charhe, who is mounted upon a much 
humbler horse, — to wit, a decrepid nursery-chair, — as 
he of right should be, since he is three years your 
junior. 

I know no nobler forage ground for a romantic, ven- 
turesome, mischievous boy, than the garret of an old 
family mansion, on a day of storm. It is a perfect 
field of chivalry. The heavy rafters, the dashing rain, 
the piles of spare mattresses to carouse upon, the 
big trunks to hide in, the old white coats and hats 
hanging in obscure corners, like ghosts — are great! 
And it is so far away from the old lady, wlio keeps 



40 Dream-Life. 

rule in the nursery, that there is no possible risk of 
a scolding, for twisting off the fringe of the rug. There 
is no baby in the garret to wake up. There is no 
* company' in the gari-et to be disturbed by the noise. 
There is no crotchety old Uncle, or Grand-Ma, with 
their everlasting — " Boys — boys 1" — and then a look of 
such horror ! 

There is great fun in groping through a tall barrel 
of books and pamphlets, on the look-out for starthng 
pictures ; and there are chestnuts in the garret, drying, 
which you have discovered on a ledge of the chimney ; 
and you shde a few into your pocket, and munch them 
quietly, — ^giving now and then one to Nelly, and 
begging her to keep silent ; — for you have a great fear 
of its being forbidden fruit. 

Old family garrets have their stock, as I said, of 
cast-away clothes, of twenty yeare gone by ; and it is 
rare sport to put them on; buttoning in a pillow or 
two for the sake of good fulness ; and then to trick out 
Nelly in some strange-shaped head-gear, and old- 
fashioned brocade petticoat caught up with pins ; and 
in such guise, to steal cautiously down stairs, and creep 
shly into the sitting-room, — half afraid of a scolding, 
and very sure of good fun ; — trying to look very sober, 
and yet almost ready to die with the laugh that you 
know you will make. And your mother tries to look 
harshly at little Nelly for putting on her grandmother's 



Rain in the Garret. 41 

best bonnet ; but Nelly's j.-iughing eyes tbvbid it ut- 
terly ; and the mother spoils all her scolding with a 
perfect shower of kisses. 

After this, you go marching, very stately, into the 
nui-sery ; and utterly amaze the old nurse ; and make 
a deal of wonderment for the staring, half-frightened 
baby, who drops his rattle, and makes a bob at you, as 
if he would jump into your waistcoat pocket. 

But you grow tired of this ; you tire even of the 
swing, and of the pranks of Charlie ; and you ghde 
away into a corner, with an old, dog's-eared copy of 
Robinson Crusoe. And you grow heart and soul into 
the story, until you tremble for the poor fellow with his 
guns, behind the palisade ; and are yourself half dead 
with fright, when you peep cautiously over the hill 
with your glass, and see the cannibals at their orgies 
around the fire. 

Yet, after all, you think the old fellow must have 
had a capital time, with a whole inland to himself; and 
you think you would like such a time yourself, if only 
Nelly, and Charhe, could be there with you. But this 
thought does not come till afterward ; for the time, you 
are nothing but Crusoe ; you are hving in his cave 
with Poll the parrot, and are looking out for your 
goats, and man Friday. 

You dream what a nice thing it would be, for you to 
slip away some plea'^ant morning— not to York, as 



42 Dream-Life. 

young Crusoe did, but to New York, — and take pas- 
sage as a sailor; and how, if they knew you were 
going, there would be such a world of good-byes ; and 
how, if they did not know it, there would be such a 
world of wonder ! 

And then the sailor's dress would be altogether such 
a jaunty affair ; and it would be such rare sport to he 
off upon the yards far aloft, as you have seen sailors in 
pictures, looking out upon the blue and tumbhng sea. 
No thought now in your boyish dreams, of sleety 
storms, and cables stiffened with ice, and crashing 
spars, and great ice-bergs towering fearfully around 
you! 

You would have better luck than even Crusoe ; you 
would save a compass, and a Bible, and stores of 
hatchets, and the captain's dog, and great puncheons 
of sweetmeats (which Crusoe altogether overlooked) ; 
and you would save a tent or two, which you could set 
up on the shore, and an American flag, and a small 
piece of cannon, which you could fire as often as you 
liked. At night, you would sleep in a tree — though 
you wonder how Crusoe did it, — and would say the 
prayers you had been taught to say at home, and fall 
to sleep, — dreaming of Nelly and Charhe. 

At sunrise, or thereabouts, you would come down, 
feehng very much refreshed ; and make a very nice 
breakfast off of smoked herringr and sea-bread, with a lit- 



Rain in the Garret. 48 

tie currant jam, and a few oranges. After this you 
would haul ashore a chest or two of the sailors' clothes, 
and putting a few large jack-knives in your pocket, 
would take a stroll over the island, and dig a cave 
somewhere, and roll in a cask or two of sea-bread. 
And you fancy yourself growing after a time very tall 
and corpulent, and wearing a magnificent goat-skin 
cap, trimmed with green ribbons, and set off" with 
a plume. You think you would have put a few more 
guns in the palisade than Crusoe did, and charged 
them with a little more grape. 

After a long while, you fancy a ship would arrive, 
which would carry you back ; and you count upon 
very great surprise on the part of your father, and little 
Nelly, as you march up to the door of the old family 
mansion, with plenty of gold in your pocket, and 
a small bag of cocoanuts for Charlie, and with a great 
deal of pleasant talk, about your island, far away in 
the South Seas. 

Or, perhaps it is not Crusoe at all, that your 

eyes and your heart cling to, but only some little story 
about Paul and Virginia ; — that dear little Virginia ! 
how many tears have been shed over her — not in gar- 
rets only, or by boys only ! 

You would have hked Virginia — you know you 
would ; but you perfectly hate the beldame aunt, who 
sent for her to come to France ; you think she must 



44 Dream-Life. 

have been like the old school-mistress, who occasionally 
boxes your ears with the cover of the spelling-book, or 
makes you wear one of the girls' bonnets, that smells 
strongly of paste-board, and calico. 

As for black Domingue, you think he was a capital 
old fellow ; and you think more of him, and his bana- 
nas, than you do of the bursting, throbbing heart of 
poor Paul. As yet. Dream-life does not take hold on 
love. A httle maturity of heart is wanted, to make up 
what the poets call sensibility. If love should come to 
be a dangerous, chivalric matter, as in the case of Helen 
Mar and Wallace, you can very easily conceive of it, 
and can take hold of all the little accessories of male 
costume, and embroidering of banners ; but as for pure 
sentiment, such as lies in the sweet story of Bernardin 
de St. Pierre, it is quite beyond you. 

The rich, soft nights, in which one might doze in his 
hammock, watching the play of the silvery moon- 
beams upon the orange leaves, and upon the waves, 
you can understand ; and you fall to dreaming of that 
lovely Isle of France ; and wondering if Virginia did 
not perhaps have some relations on the island, who 
raise pine-apples, and such sort of things, still ? 

And so, with your head upon your hand, in 

your quiet garret corner, over some such beguihng 
story, your thought leans away from the book, into 
your own dreamy cruise over the sea of life. 



n. 

School Dreams. 

IT is a 2:>roiKl thing to go out from under the realm 
of a school-mistress, and to be enrolled in a 
company of boys who are under the guidance of a 
master. It is one of the earliest steps of worldly pride, 
which has before it a long and tedious ladder of ascent. 
Even the advice of the old mistress, and the nine-penny 
book that she thrusts into your hand as a parting gift, 
pass for nothing ; and her kiss of adieu, if she tenders it 
in the sight of your fellows, will call np an angry rush 
of blood to the cheek, that for long years, shall drown 
all sense of its kindness. 

You have looked admiringly many a day upon the 
tall fellows who play at the door of Dr. Bidlow's 
school : you have looked with reverence, second only 



46 Dream-Life. 

to that felt for tlie old village cliurcli, upon its dark- 
looking heavy brick walls. It seemed to be redolent of 
learning; and stopping at times, to gaze upon the 
gallipots and broken retorts, at the second story 
window, you have pondered, in your boyish way, 
upon the inscrutable wonders of Science, and the 
ineffable dignity of Dr. Bidlow's brick school ! 

Dr. Bidlow seems to you to belong to a race of 
giants ; and yet he is a spare, thin man, with a hooked 
nose, a large, flat, gold watch-key, a crack in his voice, 
a wig, and very dirty wristbands. Still you stand 
in awe at the mere sight of him ; — an awe that is 
very much encouraged by a report made to you by a 
small boy, — that " Old Bid" keeps a large ebony ruler 
in his desk. You are amazed at the small boy's 
audacity : it astonishes you that any one who had ever 
smelt the strong fumes of sulphur and ether in the 
Doctor's room, and had seen him turn red vinegar 
blue, (as they say he does) should call him "Old 
Bid!" 

You, however, come very httle under his control : 
you enter upon the proud hfe, in the small boy's 
department, — under the dominion of the English 
master. He is a different personage from Dr. Bidlow : 
he is a dapper, little man,, who twinkles his eye 
in a pecuhar fashion, and who has a way of marching 
about the school-room with his hands crossed behind 



S f II O O L - D R E A M S . 47 

him, giving a playful flirt to his coat-tails. He wears a 
pen tucked behind his ear : his hair is carefully set up 
at the sides, and upon the top, to conceal (as you think 
later in life) his diminutive height ; and he steps very 
springily around behind the benches, glancing now and 
then at the books, — cautioning one scholar about his 
dog"s-ears, and startling another from a doze, by a very 
loud and odious snap of his forefinger upon the boy's 
head. 

At other times, he sticks a hand in the armlet of his 
waistcoat : he brandishes in the other a thickish bit of 
smooth cherry-wood, — sometimes dressing his hair 
withal ; and again, giving his head a slight scratch 
behind the ear, while he takes occasion at the same 
time, for an oblique glance at a fat boy in the cornei", 
who is reaching down from his seat after a little paper 
pellet, that has just been discharged at hira from some 
unknown quarter. The master steals very cautiously 
and quickly to the rear of the stooping boy, — 
dreadfully exposed by his unfortunate position, — and 
inflicts a stinging blow. A weak-eyed little scholar on 
the next bench ventures a modest titter ; at which the 
assistant makes a significant motion with his ruler — 
on the seat, as it were, of an imaginary pair of 
pantaloons, — which renders the weak-eyed boy on a 
sudden, very insensible to the recent joke. 

You, meantime, ]->i-ofess to be very much eno-rossed 



48 Dream-Life. 

with your grammar — turned up-side down : you think 
it must have hurt ; and are only sorry that it did not 
happen to a tall, dark-faced boy who cheated you in a 
swop of jack-knives. You innocently think that he 
must be a very bad boy ; and fancy — aided by a 
suggestion of the old nurse at home, on the same 
point, — that he will one day come to the gallows. 

There is a platform on one side of the school-room, 
where the teacher sits at a httle red table, and they 
have a tradition among the boys, that a pin properly 
bent, was one day put into the chair of the English 
master, and that he did not wear his hand in the 
armlet of his waistcoat, for two whole days thereafter. 
Yet his air of dignity seems proper enough in a man 
of such erudition, and such grasp of imagination, as he 
must possess. For he can quote poetry, — some of the 
big scholars have heard him do it : — he can parse the 
whole of Paradise Lost; and he can cipher in Long 
Division, and the Rule of Three, as if it was all 
Simple Addition ; and then — such a hand as he writes, 
and such a superb capital B ! It is hard to understand 
how he does it. 

Sometimes, lifting the hd of your desk, where you 
pretend to be very busy with your papers, you steal the 
reading of some brief passage of Lazy Lawrence, or of 
the Hungarian Brothers, and muse about it for hours 
afterward, to the i;'r(?;it detriniont of your ciphering ; 



School Dreams. 49 

or, deeply lost in the story of the Scottish Chiefs, you 
fall to comparing such villains as Menteith with the 
stout boys who tease you ; and you only wish they 
could come within reach of the fierce Kirkpatrick's 
claymore. 

But you ai-e frighted out of this stolen reading by a 
circumstance that stirs your young blood very strangely. 
The master is looking very sourly on a certain morning, 
and has caught sight of the httle weak-eyed boy over 
beyond you, reading Roderick Random. He sends 
out for a long birch rod, and having trimmed off the 
leaves carefully, — with a glance or two in your direction, 
— he marches up behind the bench of the poor 
culprit, — who turns deathly pale, — grapples him by the 
collar, drags him out over the desks, his limbs dangling 
in a shocking way against the sharp angles, and having 
him fairly in the middle of the room, clinches his rod 
with a new, and, as it seems to you, a very sportive 
grip. 

You shudder fearfully. 

" Please don't whip me," says the boy whimpering. 

" Aha !" says the smirking pedagogue, bringing 
down the stick with a quick, sliarp cut, — " you don't 
like it, eh «" 

The poor fellow screams, and struggles to escape ; 
but the blows come fa<5ter and thicker. The blood 
tingles in your finger ends witli indignation. 
3 



\ 



50 Dream-Life. 

" Please don't strike me again," says the boy sobbing 
and taking breath, as he writhes about the legs of the 
master ; — " I won't read another time." 

" Ah, you won't, sir — won't you ? I don't mean you 
shall, sir," and the blows fall thick and fast, — until 
the poor fellow crawls back, utterly crest-fallen and 
heart-sick, to sob over his books. 

You grow into a sudden boldness : you wish you 
were only large enough to beat the master : you know 
such treatment would make you miserable : you 
shudder at the thought of it : you do not believe he 
would dare : you know the other boy has got no 
father. This seems to throw a new light upon the 
matter, but it only intensities your indignation. You 
are sure that no father would suffer it ; or if you 
thought so, it would sadly weaken your love for him. 
You pray Heaven that it may never be brought to such 
proof. 

Let a boy once distrust the love or the tender- 
ness of his parents, and the last resort of his yeai-ning 
affections — so far as the world goes — is utterly gone. 
He is in the sure road to a bitter fate. His heart will 
take on a hard iron covering, that will flash out plenty 
of fire in his after contact with the world, but it will 
never — never melt ! 

There are some tall trees that overshadow an angle 
of the school-house ; and the larger scholars play some 



School Dreams. 51 

very surprising gymnastic tricks upon their lower limbs : 
one boy for instance, will hang for an incredible length 
of time by his feet, with his head down ; and when you 
tell Charlie of it at night, with such additions as your 
boyish imagination can contrive, the old nurse is 
shocked, and states very gravely that it is dangerous ; 
and that the blood all runs to the head, and sometimes 
bursts out of the eyes and mouth. You look at that 
particular boy with astonishment afterward ; and expect 
to see him some day burst into bleeding from the nose 
and ears, and flood the school-room benches. 

In time, however, you get to performing some 
modest experiments yourself upon the very lowest 
limbs, — taking care to avoid the observation of the 
larger boys, who else might laugh at you : you 
especially avoid the notice of one stout fellow in pea- 
gi*een breeches, who is a sort of ' bully ' among the 
small boys, and who delights in kicking your marbles 
about, very accidentally. He has a fashion too of 
twisting his handkerchief into what he calls a ' snapper,' 
with a knot at the end, and cracking at you with it, 
very much to the irritation of your spirits, and of your 
legs. 

Sometimes, when he has brought you to an angry 
burst of tears, he will veiy graciously force upon you 
the handkerchief, and insist upon your cracking him in 
return ; Avhich, as vou know nothing- about his effective 



52 D R E A M - L I F E . 

inetbod of making the knot bite, is a very harmless 
proposal on his part. 

But you have still stronger reason to remember that 
boy. There are trees, as I said, near the school ; and 
you get the reputation after a time of a good climber. 
One day you are well in the tops of the trees, and being 
dared by the boys below, you venture higher — higher 
tlian any boy has ever gone before. You feel very 
proudly ; but just then catch sight of the sneering face 
of your old enemy of the snapper ; and he dares you to 
go upon a hmb that he points out. 

The rest say, — for you hear them plainly — " it won't 
bear him." And Frank, a great friend of yours, shoute 
loudly to you, — not to try. 

'' Pho," says your tormentor, — " the httle coward !" 

If you could whip him, you would go down the tree 
and do it willingly : as it is, you cannot let him 
triumph : so you advance cautiously out upon the 
limb : it bends and sways fearfully with your weight : 
presently it cracks : you try to return, but it is too late : 
you feel yourself going : — your mind flashes home — • 
over your life — your hope — your fate, like lightning : 
then comes a sense of dizziness, — a succession of quick 
blows, and a dull, heavy crash ! 

You are conscious of nothing again, until you find 
yourself in the gi-eat hall of the school, covered with 



School Dreams. 63 

blood, the old Doctor standing over you with a phial, 
and Frank kneeUng by you, and holding your shattered 
arm, which has been broken by the fall. 

After this, come those long, weary days of confine- 
ment, when you lie still, through all the hours of noon, 
looking out upon the cheerful sunshine, only through 
the windows of your httle room. Yet it seems a grand 
thing to have the whole household attendant upon you. 
The doors are opened and shut softly, and they all step 
noiselessly about your chamber ; and when you groan 
with pain, you are sure of meeting sad, sympathizing 
looks. Your mother will step gently to your side and 
lay her cool, white hand upon your forehead ; and httle 
Nelly will gaze at you from the foot of your bed with 
a sad earnestness, and with tears of pity in her soft 
hazel eyes. And afterward, as your pain passes away, 
she will bring you her prettiest books, and fresh 
flowers, and whatever she knows you will love. 

But it is dreadful, when you wake at night, fi*om 
your feverish slumber, and see nothing but the spectral 
shadows that the sick-lamp upon the hearth throws 
aslant the walls ; and hear nothing but the heavy 
breathing of the old nurse in the easy chair, and 
the ticking of the clock upon the mantel ! Then, 
silence and the night crowd upon your soul drearily. 
But your thought is active. It shapes at your bed-side 
the loved figure of your mother, or it calls up the 



54 Drerm-Life. 

whole company of Dr. Bidlow's boys ; and weeks 
of study or of play, group like magic on your 
quickened vision : — then, a twinge of pain will call 
again the dreariness, and your head tosses upon the 
pillow, and your eye searches the gloom vainly for 
pleasant faces ; and your fears brood on that drearier, 
coming night of Death — far longer, and far more 
cheerless than this. 

But even here, the memory of some little prayer 
you have been taught, which promises a Morning after 
the Night, comes to your throbbing brain ; and its 
murmur on your fevered lips, as you breathe it, soothes 
like a caress of angels, and wooes you to smiles and 
sleep. 

As the days pass, you grow stronger ; and Frank 
comes in to tell you of the school, and that your old 
tormentor has been expelled : and you grow into 
a strong friendship with Frank, and you think of 
yourselves as a new Damon and Pythias — and that you 
will some day live together in a fine house, with plenty 
of horses, and plenty of chestnut trees. Alas, the boy 
counts little on those later and bitter fates of life, which 
sever his early friendships, hke wisps of straw ! 

At other times, with your eye upon the sleek, trim 
figure of the Doctor, and upon his huge bunch of 
watch seals, you think you will some day .be a Doctor ; 
and that with a wife and children, and a respectable 



School Dreams 



55 



gig, and gold watch, with seals to match, you would 
needs be a very happy fellow. 

And with such fancies drifting on your thought, you 
count for the hundredth time the figures upon the 
curtains of your bed, — you trace out the flower wreaths 
upon the paper-hangings of your room ; — your eyes 
rest idly on the cat playing with the fringe of the 
curtain ; — you see your mother sitting with her 
needle-work beside the fire ; — you watch the sunbeams 
as they drift along the carpet, from morning until 
noon ; and from noon till night, you watch them playino- 
on the leaves, and dropping spangles on the lawn ; and 
as you watch — you dream. 



III. 

Boy Sentiment. 

X'XT'EEKS, and even years of your boyhood roll on, 
T T in the which your dreams are growing wider 
and grander, — even as the Spring, which I have made 
the type of the boy-age, is stretching its foliage farther 
and farther, and dropping longer and heavier shadows 
on the land. 

Nelly, that sweet sister, has grown into your heart 
strangely ; and you think that all they write in their 
books about love, cannot equal your fondness for httle 
Nelly. She is pretty, they say ; but what do you care 
for her prettiness ? She is so good, so kind — so 
watchful of all your wants, so willing to yield to your 
haughty claims ! 

]>ut, alas, it is only when this sisterly love is lost 



Boy Sen t i m k n t . 57 

forever, — only wlioii the inexoi-able world separates a 
family and tosses it upon tbe waves of fate to wide- 
lying distances — perhaps to graves ! — that a man feels, 
what a boy can never knuw, — the disinterested and 
cibiding affection of a sister. 

All this, that I have set down, comes back to you 
long afterward, when you recal with tears of regret, 
your reproachful words, or some swift outbreak of 
passion. 

Little Madge is a friend of Nelly's — a mischievous, 
bhie-eyed hoyden. They tease you about Madge. 
You do not of course care one straw for her, but yet it 
is rather pleasant to be teased thus. Nelly never does 
this ; oh no, not she. I do not know but in the age of 
childhood, the sister is jealous of the affections of a 
brother, and would keep his heart wholly at home, 
until suddenly, and strangely, she finds her own — 
wandering. 

But after all, Madge is pretty ; and there is some- 
thing taking in her name. Old people, and very 
precise people, call her Margaret Boyne. But you do 
not : it is only plain Madge ; — it sounds like her — very 
rapid and mischievous. It would be the most absurd 
thing in the world for you to hke her, for she teases you 
in innumerable ways : she laughs at your big shoes ; 
(such a sweet little foot as she has !) and she pins strips 
of paper on your coat collar ; and time and again she 



58 D U E A M - L I F E . 

lias worn off your hat in triumpli, very well knowing 
that yon, such a quiet body, and so much afraid of her, 
will never venture upon any hberties with her gipsy 
bonnet. 

You sometimes wish, in your vexation, as you sec 
her running, that she would fall and hurt herself badly ; 
but the next moment, it seems a very wicked wish, and 
you renounce it. Once, she did come very near it. 
You were all playing together by the big swing — (how 
plainly it swings in your memory now!) — Madge had 
the seat, and you were famous for running under with a 
long push, which Madge liked bettor than anything 
else : well, you have half run over the ground, when 
crash comes the swing, and poor Madge with it ! You 
fairly scream as you catch her up. But she is not hurt 
— only a cry of fright, and a little sprain of that fairy 
ancle ; and as she brushes away the tears, and those 
flaxen curls, and breaks into a merry laugh, — half at 
your woe-worn face, and half in vexation at herself ; 
and leans her hand (such a hand !) upon your shoulder, 
to limp away into the shade, you dream — your first 
dream of love. 

But it is only a dream, not at all acknowledged by 
you : she is three or four years your junior, — too young 
altogether. It is very absurd to talk about it. There 
is nothing to be said of Madge — only — Madge ! The 
name does it. 



Boy Sentiment. 59 

It is rather a pretty name to write. You are fond 
of making capital M's ; and sometimes you follow it 
with a capital A. Then you practise a little upon a D, 
and perhaps back it up with a G. Of course it is the 
merest accident that these letters come together. It 
seems funny to you — very. And as a proof that they 
are made at random, you make a T or an R before 
them, and some other quite irrelevant letters after it. 

Finally, as a sort of security against all suspicion, you 
cross it out — cross it a great many ways ; — even holding 
it up to the light, to see that there should be no air of 
intention about it. 

You need have no fear, Clarence, that your 

hieroglyphics will be studied so closely. Accidental as 
they are, you are very much more interested in them 
than any one else ! 

It is a common fallacy of this dream in most 

stages of life, that a vast number of persons employ 
their time chiefly in spying out its operations. 

Yet Madge cares nothing about you, that you know 
of. Perhaps it is the very reason, though you do not 
suspect it then, why you care so much for her. At any 
rate, she is a friend of Nelly's ; and it is your duty not 
to dislike her. Nelly too, sweet Nelly, gets an inkling 
of matters ; for sisters ai-e very shrewd in suspicions of 
this sort — shrewder than bi'others or fathers ; and Hke 



60 Dream-Life. 

the good kind girl that she is, she wishes to humor even 
your weakness. 

Madge drops in to tea quite often : Nelly has some- 
thing in particular to show her, two or three times a 
week. Good Nelly, — perhaps she is making your 
troubles all the greater ! You gather large bunches of 
grapes for Madge — because she is a friend of Nelly's — 
which she doesn't want at all, and very pretty bouquets, 
which she either drops, or pulls to pieces. 

In the presence of your father one day, you drop 
some hint about Madge, in a very careless way — a way 
shrewdly calculated to lay all suspicion ; — at which 
your father laughs. This is odd : it makes you wonder 
if your father was ever in love himself. 

You rather think that he has been. 

Madge's father is dead and her mother is poor ; and 
you sometimes dream, how — whatever your father may 
think or feel — you will some day make a large fortune, 
in some very easy way, and build a snug cottage, and 
have one horse for your carriage, and one for your wife, 
(not Madge, of course — that is absurd) and a turtle 
shell cat for your wife's mother, and a pretty gate to 
the front yard, and plenty of shrubbery, and how your 
wife will come dancing down the path to meet you, — 
as the Wife does in Mr, Irving's Sketch Book, — and 
how she will have a harp inside, and will wear white 
dresses, with a blue sash. 



Boy Sentiment. 61 

Poor Clarence, it never once occurs to you, that 

even Madge may grow fat, and wear check aprons, and 
snuflfy -brown dresses of woollen stuff, and twist her hair 
in yellow papers 1 Oh no, boyhood has no such dreams 
as that ! 

I shall leave you here in the middle of your first 
foray into the world of sentiment, with those wicked 
blue eyes chasing rainbows over your heart, and those 
little feet walking every day into your affections. 
I shall leave you before the affair has ripened into any 
overtures, and while there is only a sixpence split 
in halves, and tied about your neck, and Maggie's 
neck, to bind your destinies together. 

If I even hinted at any probabihty of your marrying 
her, or of your not marrpng her, you would be very 
hkely to dispute me. One knows his own feelings, or 
thinks he does, so much better than any one can 
tell him ! 



IV. 

A Friend made and Friend Lost. 

TO visit, is a great thing in the boy calendar : — 
not to visit this or that neighbor, — to drink 
tea, or eat strawberries, or play at draughts ; — but, to 
go away on a visit in a coach, with a trunk, and 
a great-coat, and an umbrella : — this is large ! 

It makes no difference, that they wish to be rid 
of your noise, now that Charlie is sick of a fever : — 
the reason is not at all in the way of your pride of 
visiting. You are to have a long ride in a coach, 
and eat a dinner at a tavern, and to see a new town 
almost as large as the one you live in, and you are to 
make new acquaintances. In short, you are to see the 
world : — a very proud thing it is, to see the world ! 

As you journey on, after bidding your friends adieu, 



A Friend made and Friend Lost. 63 

and as you see fences and houses to whicli you have 
not been used, you think them very odd indeed : but it 
occurs to you, that the geographies speak of \'ery 
various national characteristics, and you are greatly 
gratified with this opportunity of verifying your study. 
You see new crops too, perhaps a broad-leaved tobacco 
field, which reminds you pleasantly of the luxuriant 
vegetation of the tropics, spoken of by Peter Parley, 
and others. 

As for the houses and barns in the new town, they 
quite startle you with their strangeness : you observe 
that some of the latter instead of having one stable 
door, have five or six, a fact which puzzles you very 
much indeed. You observe farther, that the houses 
many of them have balustrades upon the top, which 
seems to you a very wonderful adaptation to the wants 
of boys, who wish to fly kites, or to play upon 
the roof. You notice with special favor, one very low 
roof which you might chmb upon by a mere plank, and 
you think the boys, whose father lives in that house, 
are very fortunate boys. 

Your old aunt, whom you visit, you think wears a 
very queer cap, being altogether different from that of 
the old nurse, or of Mrs. Boyne, — Madge's mother. 
As for the house she Hves in, it is quite wonderful. 
There are such an immense number of closets, and 
closets within closets, reminding you of the mysteries 



64 Dream-Life. 

of Rinaldo Rinaklini. Beside which, there are im- 
mensely curious bits of old furniture — so black and 
heavy, and with such curious carving ! — and you think 
of the old wainscot in the Children of the Abbey. 
You think you will never tire of rarabhng about in its 
odd corners, and of what glorious stories you will have 
to tell of it, when you go back to Nelly, and Charlie. 

As for acquaintances, you fall in the very first day 
with a tall boy next door, called Nat. which seems an 
extraordinary name. Besides, he has travelled ; and 
as he sits with you on the summer nights under the 
hnden trees, he tells you gorgeous stories of the things 
he has seen. He has made the voyage to London ; 
and he talks about the ship (a real ship) and starboard 
and larboard, and the spanker, in a way quite surprising ; 
and he takes the stern oar, in the little skiff when you 
row off in the cove abreast of the town, in a most 
seaman-like way. 

He bewilders you too, with his talk about the great 
bridges of London — London bridge specially, where 
they sell kids for a penny ; which story your new 
acquaintance, unfortunately, does not confirm. You 
have read of these bridges, and seen pictures of them 
in the Wonders of the World ; but then Nat. has seen 
them with his own eyes : he has literally walked over 
London Bridge, on his own feet ! You look at his 
very shoes in wonderment, and are sui-prised you do 



A Friend made and Friend Lost. 65 

not find some startling difference between those shoes, 
and your shoes. But there is none — only yours are a 
trifle stouter in the welt. You think Nat. one of the 
fortunate boys of this world — born, as your old nurse 
used to say — with a gold spoon in his mouth. 

Beside Nat, there is a girl lives over the opposite 
side of the way, named Jenny, with an eye as black as 
a coal ; and a half a year older than you ; but about 
your height ; — whom you fancy amazingly. 

She has any quantity of toys, that she lets you play 
with, as if they were your own. And she has an odd, 
old uncle, who sometimes makes you stand up together, 
and then marries you after his fashion, — much to the 
amusement of a grown up house-maid, whenever she 
gets a peep at the performance. And it makes you 
somewhat proud to hear her called your wife ; and you 
wonder to yourself, dreamily, if it won't be true some 
day or other. 

Fie, Clarence, where is your spht sixpence, 

and your blue ribbon ! 

Jenny is romantic, and talks of Thaddeus of Warsaw 
in a very touching manner, and promises to lend you 
the book. She folds billets in a lover's fashion, and 
practises love-knots upon her bonnet strings. She looks 
out of the corners of her eyes very often, and sighs. 
She is frequently by herself, and pulls flowers to pieces. 



66 Dream-Life. 

She has great pity for middle-aged bachelors, and 
thinks them all disappointed men. 

After a time she writes notes to you, begging you 
would answer them at the earUest possible moment, and 
signs herself — ' your attached Jenny.' She takes the 
marriage farce of her uncle in a cold way — as trifling 
with a very serious subject, and looks tenderly at you. 
She is very much shocked when her uncle offers to kiss 
her ; and when he proposes it to you, she is equally 
indignant, but — with a great change of color. 

Nat. says one day, in a confidential conversation, that 
it won't dqj^to marry a woman six months older than 
yourself ; and this coming from Nat. who has been to 
London, rather staggers you. You sometimes think 
that you would like to marry Madge and Jenny both, if 
the thing were possible ; for Nat. says they sometimes 
do so the other side of the ocean, though he has never 
seen it himself. 

Ah, Clarence, you will have no such weakness 

as you grow older : you will find that Providence has 
charitably, so tempered our affections, that every man 
of only ordinary nerve will be amply satisfied with a 
single wife ! 

All this time, — for you are making your visit a very 
long one, so that autumn has come, and the nights are 
gi'owing cool, and Jenny and yourself are transferring 
your little coquetries to the chimney corner; — poor 



A Friend made and Friend Losx.Ci 

Charlie lies sick, at home. Boyhood, thank Heaven^ 
does not suffer severely from sympathy when the object 
is remote. And those letters from the mother, tellino; 
you that CharHe cannot play, — cannot talk even as he 
used to do ; and that perhaps his ' Heavenly Father 
will take him away, to be with him in the better 
world,' disturb you for a time only. Sometimes, 
however, they come back to your thought on a 
wakeful night, and you dream about his suffering, and 
tliink — why it is not you, but Charhe, who is sick? 
The thought puzzles you ; and well it may, for in it lies 
the whole mystery of our fate. 

Those letters grow more and more discouraging, and 
the kind admonitions of your mother grow more 
earnest, as if (though the thought does not come to 
you until yeai-s afterward) she was preparing hei-self to 
fasten upon you, that surplus of affection, which she 
fears may soon be withdrawn forever from the sick 
child. 

It is on a frosty, bleak evening, when you are playing 
with Nat. that the letter reaches you which says 
Charlie is growing woi-se, and that you must come to 
your home. It makes a dreamy night for you — 
fancying how Charhe will look, and if sickness has 
altered him much, and if he will not be well by 
Christmas. From this, you fall away in your reverie, to 
the odd old house, and its secret cupboards, and your 



68 Dream-Life. 

aunt's queer caps : then come up those black eyes of 
' your attached Jenny,' and you think it a pity that she 
is six months older than you ; and again — as you recal 
one of her sighs — ^you think — that six months are not 
much after all ! 

You bid her good-bye, with a little sentiment 
swelling in your throat, and are mortally afraid Nat. 
will see your lip tremble. Of course you promise to 
write, and squeeze her hand with an honesty, you do 
not think of doubting — for weeks. 

It is a dull, cold ride, that day, foi- you. The 
winds sweep over the withered corn-lields, with a harsh, 
chilly whistle ; and the surfaces of the little pools by the 
road-side are tossed up into cold blue wrinkles of water. 
Here and there a flock of quail, with their feathers 
ruffled in the autumn gusts, tread through the hard, dry 
stubble of an oat-field ; or startled by the snap of the 
driver's whip, they stare a moment at the coach, then 
whir away down the cold current of the wind. The 
blue jays scream from the road-side oaks, and the last 
of the blue and purple asters shiver along the wall. 
And as the sun sinks, reddening all the western clouds, 
to the color of the frosted maples, — hght lines of the 
Aurora gush up from the northern hills, and trail their 
sphntered fingers far over the autumn sky. 

It is quite dark when you reach home, but you see 
the bright reflection of a fire within, and presently at 



A Friend made and Friend Lost. 69 

the open door, Nelly clapping her hands for welcome. 
But there are sad foces when you enter. Your mother 
folds you to her heai't ; but at your first noisy out-burst 
of joy, puts her finger on her hp, and whispers poor 
Charlie's name. The Doctor you see too, slipping 
softly out of the bed-room door with glasses in his 
hand ; and — joii hardly know how — your spirits grow 
sad, and your heart gravitates to the heavy air of all 
about you. 

You cannot see Charhe, Nelly says ; — and you cannot 
in the quiet parlor, tell Nelly a single one of the many 
things, which you had hoped to tell her. She says — 
' Charhe has grown so thin and so pale, you would 
never know him.' You listen to her, but you cannot 
talk : she asks you what you have seen, and you begin, 
for a moment joyously ; but when they open the door 
of the sick room, and you hear a faint sigh, you cannot 
go on. You sit still, with your hand in Nelly's, and 
look thoughtfully into the blaze. 

You drop to sleep after that day's fatigue, with 
singular and perplexed fancies haunting you ; and when 
you wake up with a shudder in the middle of the 
night, you have a fancy that Charhe is really dead : 
you dream of seeing him pale and thin, as Nelly 
described him, and with the starched grave clothes on 
him. You toss over in your bed, and grow hot and 
feverish. You cannot sleep ; and you get up stealthily, 



70 DreAxM-Life. 

and creep down stairs ; a light is burning in the hall : 
the bed-room door stands half open, and you listen — 
fancjnng you hear a whisper. You steal on through 
the hall, and edge around the side of the door. A 
little lamp is flickering on the hearth, and the gaunt 
shadow of the bedstead hes dark upon the ceihng. 
Your mother is in her chair, with her head upon her 
hand — though it is long after midnight. The Doctor 
is standing with his back toward you, and with Charlie's 
httle wrist in his fingers ; and you hear hard breathing, 
and now and then, a low sigh from your mother's 
chair. 

An occasional gleam of fire-light makes the gaunt 
shadows stagger on the wall, like something spectral. 
You look wildly at them, and at the bed where your 
own bi'other — your laughing, gay-hearted brother, is 
lying. You long to see him, and sidle up softly a step 
or two : but your mother's ear has caught the sound, 
and she beckons you to her, and folds you again in her 
embrace. You whisper to her what you wish. She 
rises, and takes you by the hand, to lead you to the 
bedside. 

The Doctor looks very solemnly, as we approach. 
He takes out his watch. He is not counting Charhe's 
pulse, for he has dropped his hand ; and it lies care- 
lessly, but oh, how thin ! over the edge of the bed. 

He shakes his head mournfully at your mother ; and 



A Friend made and Friend Lost. 71 

she springs forward, dropping j^onr hand, and lays her 
fingers upon the forehead of the boy, and passes her 
hand over his mouth. 

" Is he asleep, Doctor ?" she says, in a tone you 
do not know. 

" Be calm, madam." The Doctor is very calm. 

" I am calm," says your mother ; but you do not 
think it, for you see her tremble very plainly. 

" Dear madam, he will never waken in this world !" 

There is no cry, — only a bowing down of your 
mother's head upon the body of poor, dead Charlie ! — 
and only when you see her form shake and quiver vnth 
the deep, smothered sobs, your crying bursts forth loud 
and strong. 

The Doctor lifts you in his arms, that yen may 
see — that pale head, — those blue eyes all sunken, — that 
flaxen hair gone, — those white hps pinched and hard ! 

Never, never, will the boy forget his first terrible 

sight of Death ! 

In your silent chamber, after the storm of sobs has 
wearied you, the boy-dreams are strange and earnest. 
They take hold on that awful Visitant, — that strange 
slipping away from life, of which we know so little, and 
yet know, alas, so much ! Charlie that was your 
brother, is now only a name : perhaps he is an angel : 
perhaps (for the old nurse has said it, when he was 
ugly — and now, you hate her for it) he is with Satan. 



72 Dream-Life. 

But you are sure this cannot be : you are sure that 
God who made him suffer, would not now quicken, and 
mul tidily his suffering. It agrees with your rehgion to 
think so ; and just now, you want your religion to help 
you all it can. 

You toss in your bed, thinking over and over of that 

strange thing Death : — and that perhaps it may 

overtake you, before you are a man ; and you sob out 
those prayers (you scarce know why) which ask God to 
keep life in you. You think the involuntary fear that 
makes your little prayer full of sobs, is a holy feeling : — 
and so it is a holy feeling — the same feeling which 
makes a stricken child, yearn for the embrace, and 
the protection of a Parent. But you will find there 
are those canting ones, trying to persuade you at a 
later day, that it is a niere animal fear, and not to be 
cherished. 

You feel an access of goodness growing out of your 
boyish grief : you feel right-minded : it seems as if 
your little bi'other in going to Heaven, had opened a 
pathway thither, down which, goodness comes streaming 
over your soul. 

You think how good a life you will lead ; and you 
map out great purposes, spreading themselves over the 
school- weeks of your remaining boyhood ; and you love 
your friends, or seem to, far more dearly than you ever 
loved them before ; and you forgive the boy who 



A Friend made and Friend Lost. 73 

provoked you to that sad fall from the oaks, and you 
forgive him all his wearisome teasings. But you 
cannot forgive yourself for some harsh words that 
you have once spoken to Charlie : still less can you 
forgive yourself for having once struck him, in passion, 

with your fist. You cannot forget his sobs then : 

if he were only alive one little instant, to let you say, — 
" Charlie, will you forgive me ?" 

Youi'self, you cannot forgive ; and sobbing over it, 
and murmuring " Dear — dear Charhe !" — you drop into 
a troubled sleep. 



V. 

Boy Religion. 

IS any weak soul frightened, that I should write 
of the Rehgion of the boy ? How indeed could I 
cover the field of his moral, or intellectual growth, if I 
left unnoticed those dreams of futurity and of goodness, 
which come sometimes to his quieter moments, and 
oftener, to his hours of vexation and trouble ? It 
would be as wise to describe the season of Spring, with 
no note of the silent influences of that burning Day- 
god, which is melting day by day the shattered ice-drifts 
of Winter ; — which is filling every bud with succulence, 
and painting one flower with crimson, and another with 
white. 

I know there is a feeling — by much too general as it 
seems to me, — that the subject may not be approached. 



Boy Religion. 76 

except through the dicta of certain ecclesiastic bodies ; — 
and that the language which touches it, must not be 
that every-day language which mirrors the vitality of 
our thought, — but should have some twist of that 
theologic mannerism, which is as cold to the boy, as to 
the busy man of the world. 

I know very well that a great many good souls will 
call levity, what I call honesty; and will abjure that 
fjimiliar handling of the boy's lien upon Eternity, w^hich 
my stoiy will show. But I shall feel sure that in 
keeping true to Nature with word and with thought, I 
shall in no way otiend against those Highest truths, to 
which all truthfulness is kindred. 

You have Christian teachers, who speak always 
I'everently of the Bible : you grow up in the hearing 
of daily prayers : nay, you are perhaps taught to say 
them. 

Sometimes they have a meaning, and sometimes they 
have none. They have a meaning, when your heart is 
troubled, — when a grief or a wrong weighs upon you : 
then, the keeping of the Father, which you implore, 
seems to come from the bottom of your soul ; and your 
eye suffuses with such tears of feeling, as you count 
holy, and as you love to cherish in your memory. 

But, they have no meaning, when some trifling 
vexation angers you, and a distaste for all about you, 
breeds a distaste for all above you. In the long hours 



76 Dream-Life. 

of toilsome days, little thought comes over you of the 
morning prayer; and only when evening deepens its 
shadows, and your boyish vexations fatigue you to 
thoughtfulness, do you dream of that coming, and 
endless night, to which, — they tell you, — prayers soften 
the way. 

Sometimes upon a Summer Sunday, when you are 
^^akeful upon your seat in church, with some strong- 
woi'ded preacher, who says things that half fright you, 
it occurs to you to consider how much goodness you 
are made of ; and whether there be enough of it after 
all, to carry you safely away from the clutch of Evil ? 
And straightway }'ou reckon up those friendships where 
your heai't lies : you know you are a true and honest 
friend to Frank ; and you love your mother, and your 
father : as for Nelly, Heaven knows, you could not 
contrive a way to love her better than you do. 

You dare not take much credit to yourself for the 
love of httle Madge : — partly because you have some- 
times caught yourself trying — not to love her : and 
partly because the black-eyed Jenny comes in tho 
way. Yet you can find no command in the Gate 
chism, to love one girl to the exclusion of all other 
girls. It is somewhat doubtful if you ever do find it 
But, as foi" loving some half dozen you could name 
whose images drift through your thought, in dirty 
salmon-colored frocks, and slovenly shoes, it is quite 



]*> O Y R E LI CtI O N . 77 

impossible ; and suddenly this thought, coupled with 
a hngering remembrance of the pea-gi-een pantaloons, 
utterly breaks down your hopes. 

Yet, you muse again, — there ai'e plenty of good 
people as the times go, who have their dislikes, and 
who speak them too. Even the sharp-talking clergy- 
man, you have heard say some very sour things about 
his landlord, who raised his rent the last year. And 
you know that he did not talk as mildly as he does in 
the Church, when he found Frank and yourself quietly 
filching a few of his peaches, through the orchai-d 
fence. 

But your clergyman will say perhaps, with what 
seems to you, quite unnecessary coldness, that good- 
ness is not to be reckoned in your chances of safety ; — 
that there is a Higher Goodness, whose merit is All- 
Sufficient. This puzzles you sadly; nor will you 
escape the puzzle, until in the presence of the Home 
altar, which seems to guard you, as the Lares guarded 
Roman childi*en, you feel — you cannot tell how, — 
that good actions must spring from good sources ; and 
that those sources must lie in that Heaven, toward 
which your boyish spirit yearns, as you kneel at your 
mother's side. 

Conscience too, is all the while approving you for 
deeds well done ; and, — wicked as you fear the preacher 
might judge it, — you cannot but found on thc:;e deeds, 



78 Dkeam-Life. 

a hope that your prayer at night flows more easily, 
more freely, and more holily toward "Our Father in 
Heaven." Nor indeed, later in life, — whatever may be 
the ill-advised expressions of human teachers — will you 
ever find that Duty performed^ and generous endeavor 
will stand one whit in the way either of Faith, or of 
Love. Striving to be good, is a very direct road 
toward Goodness ; and if hfe be so tempered by high 
motive as to make actions always good. Faith is 
unconsciously won. 

Another notion that disturbs you very much, is 
your positive dislike of long sermons, and of such 
singing as they have when the organist is away. 
You cannot get the force of that verse of Dr. Watts 
which likens heaven to a never-ending Sabbath ; you 
do hope — though it seems a half wicked hope — that 

old Dr. -, will not be the preacher. You think 

that your heart in its best moments, craves for some- 
thing more lovable. You suggest this perhaps to 
some Sunday teacher, who only shakes his head sourly, 
and. tells you it is a thought that the Devil is putting 
in your brain. It strikes you oddly that the Devil 
should be using a verse of Dr. Watts to puzzle you ! 
But if it be so, he keeps it sticking by your thought 
very pertinaciously, until some simple utterance of 
your mother about the Love that reigns in the other 



Bo Y Re LI G I o N . 79 

world, seems on a sudden to widen Heaven, and to 
waft away your doubts like a cloud. 

It excites your wonder not a little, to find people 
who talk gravely and heartily of the excellence of 
sermons and of Church-going, do sometimes fall asleep 
undei' it all. And you wonder — if they really like 
preaching so well, — why they do not buy some of the 
minister's old manuscripts, and read them over on 
wee4i-days; — or, invite the Clergyman to preach to 
them in a quiet way in private ? 

Ah, Clarence, you do not yet know the poor 

weakness of even maturest manhood, and the feeble 
gropings of the soul toward a soul's paradise, in the 
best of the vvorld ! You do not yet know either that 
ignorance and fear will be thrusting their untruth and 
false show into the very essentials of Religion. 

Again, you wonder, — if the Clergymen are all such 
very good men as you are taught to beheve, why it is, 
that every little while people will be trying to send 
them off; and very anxious to prove that instead of 
being so good, they are in fact, very stupid and bad 
men. At that day, you have no clear conceptions 
of the distinction between stupidity and vice; and 
think that a good man must necessarily say very 
eloquent things. You will find yourself sadly mistaken 
on this point, before you get on very far in life. 

Heaven, when your mother peoples it with friends 



80 D R R A M - L I F E . 

gone, and little Charlie, and that better Friend, who, 
she says, took Chariie in his arms, and is now his 
Father, above the skies, seems a place to be loved, and 
longed for. But — to think that Mr. Such-an-one, who 
is only good on Sundays, will be there too ; and to 
think of his talking as he does, of a place which you 
are sure he would spoil if he were there, — puzzles you 
again ; and you relapse into wonder, doubt and 
yearning. 

And there, Clarence, for the present I shall 

leave you. A wide, rich Heaven hangs above you, 
but it hangs very high. A wide, rough world is 
around you, and it lies very low ! 

I am assuming in these sketches no office of a 
teacher. I am seeking only to make a truthful analysis 
of the boyish thought and feeling. But having 
ventured thus flir into what may seem sacred ground, 
I shall venture still farther, and chnch my matter with 
a moral. 

There is very much Religious teaching, even in so 
good a country as JSTew England, which is far too 
liarsh, too dry, too cold for the heart of a boy. Long 
sermons, doctrinal precepts, and such tediously- worded 
dogmas as were uttered by those honest, but hard- 
spoken men — the Westminstei* Divines, fatigue, and 
puzzle, and dispirit him. 



B Y R E L I G I O N . 81 

They may be well enough for those strong souls 
which strengthen by task- work, or for those mature 
people whose iron habit of self-denial has made patience 
a cardinal virtue ; but they fall [experto crecle) upon 
the unfledged faculties of the boy, like a winter's rain 
upon Spring flowers, — like hammers of iron upon lithe 
timbei-. They may make deep impression upon his 
moi-al nature, but there is great danger of a sad 
rebound. 

Is it absurd to suppose that some adaptation is 
desirable ? And might not the teachings of that Reli- 
gion, which is the ^gis of our moral being, be 
inwrought with some of those finer harmonies of speech 
and form — which were given to wise ends ; — and lui-e 
the boyish soul, by something akin to that gentleness, 
which belonged to the Nazarene Teacher ; and which 
provided — not only, meat for men, but " milk for 

9" 



VI. 

A New England Squire. 

FRANK has a grandfather living in the country^ 
a good specimen of the old fashioned New 
England farmer. And — go where one will, the world 
over — I know of no race of men, who taken together, 
possess more integrity, more intelligence, and more of 
those elements of comfort, which go to make a home 
beloved, and the social basis firm, than the New 
England farmers. 

They are not briUiant, nor are they highly refined ; 
they know nothing of arts, histrionic or dramatic; 
they know only so much of older nations as their 
histories and newspapers teach them ; in the fashion- 
able world they hold no place ; — but in energy, in 
industry, in hardy virtue, in substantial knowledge, 



A New England Squire. 83 

and in manly independence, they make up a race, that 
is hard to be matched. 

The French peasantry are, in all the essentials of 
intelligence, and sterhng worth, infants, compared with 
them : and the farmers of England are eitlier the 
merest jockeys in grain, with few ideas beyond their 
sacks, samples, and market-days ; — or, with addt.d 
cultivation, they lose their independence in a subservi- 
ency to some neighbor patron of rank ; and superior 
intelligence teaches them no lesson so quickly, as that 
their brethren of the glebe are unequal to them, and 
are to be left to their cattle and the goad. 

There are English fai-mers indeed, who are men 
in earnest, who read the papers, and who keep the 
current of the year's intelligence; but such men are 
the exceptions. In New England, with the school 
upon every third hill-side, and the self-regulating, free- 
acting church, to watch every valley with week-day 
quiet, and to wake every valley with Sabbath sound, 
the men become as a class, bold, inteUigent, and 
honest actors, who would make again, as they ha^•e 
made before, a terrible army of defence; and who 
would find reasons for their actions, as strong as their 
armies. 

Frank's grandfather has silver hair, but is still 
hale, erect, and strong. His dress is homely, but neat. 
Being a thorough-going Protectionist, he has no fancy 



84 Dream-Life. 

for the gew-gaws of foreign importation, and makes it 
a point to appear always in the village church, and 
on all great occasions, in a sober suit of homespun. 
He has no pride of appearance, and he needs none. 
He is known as the Squire, throughout the township ; 
and no important measure can pass the board of 
select-men without the Squire's approval : — and this, 
from no bhnd subserviency to his opinion, because his 
farm is large, and he is reckoned "fore-handed," but 
because there is a confidence in his judgment. 

He is jealous of none of the prerogatives of the 
country parson, or of the school-master, or of the 
Village doctor ; and although the lattei is a testy 
politician of the opposite party, it does not at all 
impair the Squire's faith in his calomel ; — he sufFere 
all his Radicahsm, ^vith the same equanimity that he 
suffers his rhubarb. 

The day-laborers of the neighborhood, and the 
small farmers consider the Squire's note of hand for 
their savings, better than the best bonds of city origin ; 
and they seek his advice is all mattei-s of litigation. 
He is a Justice of the Peace, as the title of Squire 
in a 'New England village implies ; and many are the 
country courts that you peep upon, with Frank, from 
the door of the great dining room. 

The defendant always seems to you, in these 



A New England Squire. 85 

important cases, — especially if his beard is rather 
long, — an extraordinary ruffian ; to whom Jack Shej)- 
pard would have been a comparatively innocent boy. 
You watch curiously the old gentleman, sitting in his 
big arm chair, with his spectacles in their silver case 
at his elbow, and his snuff box in hand, listening 
attentively to some grievous complaint; you see him 
ponder deeply — with a pinch of snuff to aid his judg- 
ment, — and you listen with intense admiration, tis 
he gives a loud, preparatory ''Ahem,'' and clears away 
the intricacies of the case with a sweep of that strong 
practical sense, which distinguishes the New England 
farmer, — getting at the very hinge of the matter, 
without any consciousness of his own precision, and 
satisfying the defendant by tne clearness of his talk, as 
much as by the leniency of his judgment. 

His lands he along those sweUing hills which in 
southern New England, carry the chain of the White 
and Green Mountains, in gentle undulations, to the 
borders of tlie sea. He farms some fifteen hundred 
acres, — " suitably divided," as the old school agricul- 
turists say, into " wood-land, pasture, and tillage." The 
farm-house, a large irregularly built mansion of wood, 
stands upon a shelf of tlie hills looking southward, 
and is shaded by centur3^-old oaks. The barns and 
out-buildings are grouped in a brown phalanx, a 
little to the northward of the dwelling;. Between them 



86 Dream-Life. 

a high timber gate, opens upon the scattered pasture 
lands of the hills : opposite to this, and across the 
farm-yard which is the lounging place of scores of red- 
necked turkeys, and of matronly hens, clucking to their 
callow brood, another gate of similar pretensions opens 
upon the wide meadow land, which rolls with a heavy 
" ground swell," along the \'alley of a mountain river. 
A veteran oak stands sentinel at the brown meadow- 
gate, its trunk all scarred with the ruthless cuts of 
new-ground axes, and the limbs garnished in summer 
time, with the crooked snathes of murderous-looking 
scythes. 

The high-road passes a stone's throw away ; but 
there is little " travel " to be seen ; and every chance 
passer will inevitably come undo- the range of the 
kitchen windows, and be studied cai-efully by the eyes 
of the stout dairy -maid : — to say nothing of the 
stalwart Indian cook. 

This last, you cannot but admire as a type of that 
noble old race, among whom your boyish fancy has 
woven so many stories of romance. You wonder how 
she must regard the white interlopers upon her own 
soil ; and you think that she tolerates the Squire's 
farming privileges, with more modesty than you would 
suppose. You learn, however, that she pays very 
little regard to white rights, — when they conflict with 
her own ; and further learn, to your deep regret. 



A New England Squire. 87 

that your Princess of the old tribe, is sadly addicted 
to cider drinking : and having heard her once or 
twice, with a very indistinct " Goo-er night Sq-quare," 
upon her lips — your dreams about her, grow veiy 
tame. 

The Squire, like all very sensible men, has his 
hobbies, and pecuharities. He has a great contempt, 
for instance, for all paper money ; and irnagines banks 
to DC corporate societies, skillfully contrived for the 
legal plunder of the community. He keeps a supply 
of silver and gold by him, in the foot of an old 
stocking ; and seems to have great confidence in the 
value of Spanish milled dollars. He has no kind of 
patience with the new doctrines of farming. Liebig, 
and all the rest, he sets down as mere theorists ; and has 
far more respect for the contents of his barn-yard, than 
for all the guano deposits in the woi-ld. Scientific 
farming, and gentleman farming, may do very well, he 
says, ' to keep idle young fellows from the City out of 
mischief ; but as for real, effective management, there's 
nothing like the old stock of men, who ran barefoot 
until they were ten, and who count the hard winters 
by their frozen toes.' And he is fond of quoting in 
this connection, — the only quotation by the by, that 
the old gentleman ever makes — that couplet of Poor 
Richard : — 



88 D R E A M - L 1 F E . 

He that by the plough would thrive, 
Himself must either hold or drive. 



The Squire has been in his day, connected more or 
less intimately with Turn-pike enterprise, which the 
rail-roads of the day have thrown sadly into the back- 
ground ; and he reflects often, in a melancholy way, 
upon the good old times when a man could travel in 
his own cari'iage quietly across the country, without 
being frightened with the clatter of an engine ; — and 
when Turn-pike stock, paid wholesome yearly dividends 
of six per cent. 

An almost constant hangei'-on about the premises, 
and a great favorite with the Squire, is a stout, middle- 
aged man, with a heavy bearded face — to whom Frank 
introduces you, as " Captain Dick" ; and he tells you 
moreovei-, that he is a better butcher, — a better wall 
layer, and cuts a broader " swathe," than any man 
upon the fiirm. Beside all which, he has an immense 
deal of infoi-mation. He knows, in the Spring, where 
all the crows' nests are to be found ; he tells Frank 
where the foxes burrow ; he has even shot two or 
three raccoons in the swamps ; he knows the best 
season to troll for pickerel ; he has a thorough under- 
standing of bee-hunting ; he can tell the ownership 
of eveiy stray heifer that appears upon the road : 
indeed, scarce an inquiry is made, or an opinion 



A New England Squire. 89 

formed, on any of these subjects, or on such kindred 
ones as the weather, or potato crop, without previous 
consultation with " Captain Dick." 

You have an extraordinary respect for Captain 
Dick : his gruff tones, dark beard, patched waist- 
coat, and cow-hide boots, only add to it : you can 
compare your regard for him, only with the sentiments 
you entertain for those fiibulous Roman heroes, led 
on by Horatius, who cut down the bridge across 
the Tiber, and then swam over to their wives and 
families ! 

A superannuated old greyhound lives about the 
premises, and stalks lazily around, thrusting his thin 
nose into your hands, in a very affectionate manner. 

Of course, in your way, you are a lion among 
the boys of the neighborhood : a blue jacket that 
you wear, with bell buttons of white metal, is their 
especial wonderment. You astonish them, moreover, 
with your stories of various parts of the world which 
they have never visited. They tell you of the haunts 
of rabbits, and great snake stories, as you sit in the 
dusk after supper, under the old oaks ; and you 
dehght them in turn, with some marvellous tale of 
South American reptiles, out of Peter Parley's books. 

In all this, your new friends are men of observation ; 
while Fiank and yourself, are comparatively men of 
reading. In cipherinii-, and all schooling, you find 



90 Drkam-Life. 

yourself a long way before them ; and you talk of 
problems, and foreign seas, and Latin declensions, in a 
way that sets them all agape. 

As for the little country girls, their bare legs rather 
stagger your notions of propriety ; nor can you wholly 
get over their outside pronunciation of some of the vow- 
els. Frank, however, has a httle cousin, — a toddhng, 
wee thing, some seven years your junior, who has a rich 
eye for an infant. But, alas, its color means nothing ; 
poor Fanny is stone blind ! Your pity leans toward 
her strangely, as she feels her way about the old parlor ; 
and her dark eyes wander over the wainscot, or over the 
clear, blue sky — with the same, sad, painful vacancy. 

And yet — it is very strange ! — she does not grieve : 
there is a sweet, soft smile upon her hp, — a smile that 
will come to you in your fancied troubles of after life, 
with a deep voice of reproach. 

Altogether, you grow into a liking of the country : 
your boyish spirit loves its fresh, bracing air, and the 
sparkles of dew, that at sunrise cover the hills with 
diamonds ; — and the wild river, with its black-topped, 
loitering pools ; — and the shaggy mists that lie, in the 
nights of early autumn, hke unravelled clouds, lost 
upon the meadow. You love the hills climbing green 
and grand to the skies ; or stretching away in distance, 
their soft, blue, smoky caps, — hke the sweet, half-faded 



A New England Squire. 91 

memories of the years behind you. You love those 
oaks tossing up their broad arms into clear heaven, with 
a spirit and a strength, that kindles your dawning pride 
and purposes; and that makes you yearn, iis youi 
forehead mantles with fresh blood, for a kindred spirit, 
and a kindi"ed strength. Above all, you love — though 
you do not know it now — the Breadth of a countr} 
hfe. In the fields of God's planting, there is Room. 
No walls of brick and mortar cramp one : no factitious 
distinctions mould your habit. The involuntary reaches 
of the spirit, tend toward the True, and the Natural. 
The flowei-s, the clouds, and the fresh-smeUing earth, all 
give width to your intent The boy grows into 
manliness, instead of growing to be like men. He 
, claims, — with teai's almost, of brotherhood, — his kinship 
with Nature ; and he feels, in the mountains, his heir- 
ship to the Father of Nature ! 

This delirium of feeling may not find expression upon 
the lip of the boy ; but yet it underhes his thought, and 
will, without his consciousness, give the spring to his 
musing dreams. 

So it is, that as you lie there upon the sunny 

greensward, at the old Squire's door, you muse upon 
the time when some rich lying land, with huge 
granaries, and cozy old mansion sleejtiiig under the 
trees, shall be yours ; — when the brooks shall water 
your meadows, and come laughing down your pasture 



92 1> R E A M - L I F E . 

lands ; — when the clouds shall shed theu* spring 
fragrance upon your lawns, and the daisies bless your, 
paths. 

You will then be a Squire, with youi- cane, your 
lean-hmbed hound, your stocking-leg of specie, and 
your snuft-box. You will be the happy, and respected 
husband of some tidy old lady in black, and spectacles, 
— a little phthisicky, like Frank's grandmother, — and 
an accomplished cook of stewed pears, and Johnny 
cakes ! 

It seems a very lofty ambition, at this stage of 
growth, to reach such eminence, as to convert your 
drawer in the wainscot, that has a secret spring, into a 
bank for the country people ; and the power to send a 
man to jail, seems one of those stretches of human 
prerogative, to which few of your fellow mortals can 
ever hope to attain. 

Well, it may all be. And who knows but the 

Dreams of Age, when they are reached, will be lighted 
by the same spirit and freedom of nature, that is 
around you now ? Who knows, but that after tracking 
fou through the Spring, and the Summer of Youth, 
we shall find frosted Age setthng upon you heavily, and 
solemnly, in the very fields where you wanton to-day ? 

This American life of ours is a tortuous and shifting 
impulse. It brings Age back, from years of wandering, 
to totter in the hamlet of its birth ; and it scatters 



A New England Squire. 93 

armies of ripe manhood, to bleach far-away shores with 
their bones. 

That Providence, whose eye and hand are the spy 
and the executioner of the Fateful changes of our life, 
may bring you back in Manhood, or in Age, to this 
mountain home of New England ; and that very willow 
yonder, which your ftincy now makes the graceful 
mourner of your leave, may one day shadow mournfully 
your grave ! 



vn. 

The Country Church. 

THE country cliurcli is a square old building of 
wood, without paint or decoration — and of that 
genuine, Puritanic stamp, which is now fast giving 
way to Greek porticos, and to cockney towers. It 
stands upon a hill with a little church yard in its 
rear, where one or two sickly looking trees keep watch 
and ward over the vagrant sheep that graze among 
the graves. Bramble bushes seem to thrive on the 
bodies below, and there is no flower in the little yard, 
save a few golden rods, which flaunt their gaudy 
inodorous color under the lee of the northern wall. 

New England country -livers have as yet been very 
little innoculated with the sentiment of beauty; even 
the door-step to the chiu-ch is a wide flat stone, that 



The Country Church. 95 

shows not a single stroke of the hammer. Within, the 
simphcity is even more severe. Brown galleries run 
around three sides of the old building, supported by 
timbers, on which you still trace, under the stains from 
the leaky roof, the deep scoring of the woodman's axe. 

Below, the unpainted pews are ranged in square 
forms, and by age, have gained the color of those 
fragmentary wrecks of cigar boxes, which you see upon 
the top shelves, in the bar-rooms of country taverns. 
The minister's desk is lofty, and has once been honored 
with a coating of paint ; — as well as the huge sounding- 
board, which, to your great amazement, protrudes fi'om 
the wall, at a very dangei'ous angle of inclination, over 
the speaker's head. As the Squire's pew is the place 
of honor, to the right of the pulpit, you have a httle 
tremor yourself, at sight of the heavy sounding-board, 
and cannot forbear indulging in a quiet feehng of 
relief, when the last prayer is said. 

There are in the Squire's pew, long, faded, crimson 
cushions ; which, it seems to you, must date back 
nearly to the commencement of the Christian era in 
this country. There are also sundry old thumb-worn 
copies of Dr. Dwight's Version of the Psalms of David 
— ' appointed to be sung in churches, by authority of 
the General Association of the State of Connecticut.' 
The sides of Di-. Dwight's Version are, you observe, 
sadly warped, and weather-stained ; and from some 



96 D R E A M - L I F E . 

stray figures which appear upon a fly-leaf, you are 
constrained to think, that the Squire has sometime 
employed a quiet interval of the sei-vice, with reckoning 
up the contents of the old stocking-leg at home. 

The parson is a stout man, remarkable in your 
opinion, chiefly, for a yello\vish-brown wig, a strong 
nasal tone, and occasional violent thumps upon the 
httle, dingy, red velvet cushion, studded with brass 
tacks, at the top of the desk. You do not altogether 
admire his style ; and by the time he has entered upon 
his ' Fourthly,' you give your attention, in despair, to a 
new reading (it must be the twentieth) of the preface 
to Dr. D wight's Version of the Psalms. 

The singing has a charm for you. There is a long, 
thin-faced, flax-haired man, who carries a tuning fork in 
his waistcoat pocket, and who leads the choir. His 
position is in the very front rank of gallery benches, 
fticing the desk ; and by the time the old clergyman 
has read two verses of the psalm, the country chorister 
turns around to his Httle group of aids — consisting of 
the blacksmith, a carroty headed school-master, two 
women in snuff"-colored silks, and a girl in pink bonnet — 
to announce the tune. 

This being done in an authoritative manner, he lifts 
his long music book, — glances again at his little com- 
pany, — clears his throat by a powerful aliem, followed 
by a powerful use of a bandanna pocket-handkerchief, — 



The Country Church. 97 

draws out his tuning fork, and waits for the parson to 
close his reading. He now reviews once more his 
company, — throws a reproving glance at the young 
woman in the pink hat, who at the moment is biting 
off a stout bunch of fennel, — lifts his music book, — 
thumps upon the rail with his fork, — listens keenly, — 
gives a slight ahem, — falls into the cadence, — swells into 
a strong crescendo, — catches at the first word of the 
line, as if he were afraid it might get aw^ay, — turns to 
his company, — lifts his music book with spirit, — gives it 
a powerful slap with the disengaged hand, and with a 
majestic toss of the head, soai-s away, with half the 
women below straggling on in his wake, into some such 
brave, old melody as Litchfield ! 

Being a visitor, and in the Squire's pew, you are 
naturally an object of considerable attention to the girls 
about your age ; as well as to a great many fat, old 
ladies in iron spectacles, who mortify you excessively, by 
patting you under the chin after church ; and insist upon 
mistaking you for Frank ; and force upon you very dry 
cookies, spiced with caraway seeds. 

You keep somewhat shy of the young ladies, as they 
are rather stout for your notions of beauty ; and wear 
thick calf-skin boots. They compare very poorly with 
Jenny. Jenny, you think, would be above eating 
gingerbread between ser\nce. None of them, you 
imagine, even read Thaddeus of Warsaw, or ever used 
5 



98 Bream-Life. 

a colored glass seal with a heart upon it. You are 
quite certain they never did, or they could not, surely, 
wear such dowdy gowns, and suck their thumbs as they 
do! 

The farmers you have a high respect for ; — particu- 
larly for one weazen-faced old gentleman in a brown 
surtout, who brings his whip into church with him, who 
sings in a very strong voice, and who drives a span of 
gray colts. You think, however, that he has got rather 
a stout wife ; and from the way he humors her in 
stopping to talk with two or three other fat women, 
before setting off for home, (though he seems a httle 
fidgetty) you naively think, that he has a high regard 
for her opinion. Another townsman, who attracts your 
notice, is a stout old deacon, who before entering, 
always steps around the corner of the church, and puts 
his hat upon the ground, to adjust his wig in a quiet 
way. He then marches up the broad aisle in a stately 
manner, and plants his hat, and a big pair of buckskin 
mittens, on the httle table under the desk. When he 
is fairly seated in his corner of the pew, with his elbow 
upon the top-i-ail — almost the only man who can 
comfortably reach it, — you observe that he spreads his 
brawny fingers over his scalp, in an exceedingly cautious 
manner ; and you innocently think again, that it is very 
hypocritical in a Deacon, to be pretending to lean upon 
his hand, when he is only keeping his wig straight. 



The Country Church. 99 

After the niorning service, they have an ' hour's 
intermission,' as the preacher calls it ; during which, the 
old men gather on a sunny side of the building, and 
after shaking hands all around, and asking after the 
' folks ' at home, they enjoy a quiet talk about the 
crops. One man for instance, with a twist in his nose, 
would say, ' it's raether a growin' season ; ' and another 
would reply — ' tolerable, but potatoes is feelin' the wet, 
badly.' The stout deacon approves this opinion, and 
confirms it, by blowing his nose very powerfully. 

Two or three of the more worldly minded ones, will 
perhaps stroll over to a neighbor's barn-yard, and take a 
look at his young stock, and talk of prices, and whittle 
a little ; and very hkely some two of them, vrill make a 
conditional ' swop ' of ' three likely yer'lings ' for a pair 
of ' two-year-olds.' 

The youngsters are fond of getting out into the 
grave-yard, and comparing jack-knives, or talking about 
the school-master, or the menagerie ; — or, it may be, of 
some prospective ' travel ' in the fall, — either to town, 
or perhaps to the ' seashore.' 

Afternoon service hangs heavily ; and the tall choris- 
ter is by no means so blithe, or so majestic in the toss 
of his head, as in the morning. A boy in the next box, 
tries to pi-ovoke you into familiarity by dropping pellets 
of gingerbread through the bai's of the pew ; but as 



100 D K E A M - L I F E . 

you are not accustoiiied to that way of making 
acquaintance, you decline all overtures. 

After the service is finished, the wagons that have 
been disposed on either side of the road, are drawn up 
before the door. The old Squire meantime, is sure to 
have a little chat with the parson before he leaves ; in 
the course of which, the parson takes occasion to say 
that his wife is a little ailing — ' a slight touch,' he 
thinks, ' of the rheumatiz.' One of the children too, 
has been troubled with the ' summer complaint' for a day 
or two ; but he thinks that a dose of catnip, under 
Providence, will effect a cure. The younger, and 
unmarried men, with red w^agons, flaming upon bright, 
yellow wheels, make great efforts to drive off in the van ; 
and they spin frightfully near some of the fat, sour-faced 
women, who remark in a quiet, but not very Christian 
tone, that ' they fear the elder's sermon hasn't done the 
young bucks much good.' It is much to be feared, in 
truth, that it has not. 

In ten minutes the old church is thoroughly deserted ; 
the neighbor who keeps the key has locked up for 
another week, the creaking door ; and nothing of the 
service remains within, except — Dr. D wight's version, 
— ^the long music books, — crumbs of gingerbread, and 
refuse stalks of despoiled fennel. 

And yet, under the influence of that old weather- 
stained temple, are perhaps growing up — though you 



The Country Church. 101 

do not once fancy it — souls, possessed of an energy, an 
industry, and a respect for virtue, which will make them 
stronger for the real work of Mfe, than all the elegant 
children of a city. One lesson, which even the rudest 
churches of New England teach, — with all their harsh- 
ness, and all their repulsive severity of form — is the 
lesson of Self-Denial. Once armed with that, and 
manhood is strong. The soul that possesses the 
consciousness of mastering passion, is endowed with an 
element of force, that can never harmonize with 
defeat. Difficulties, it wears hke a summer garment, 
and flings away, at the first approach of the winter of 

NEED. 

Let not any one suppose then, that in this detail of 
the country life, through which our hero is led, I 
would cast obloquy, or a sneer, upon its simphcity, or 
upon its lack of refinement. Goodness, and strength, 
in this world, are quite as apt to wear rough coats, as 
fine ones. And the words of thorough, and self- 
sacrificing kindness, are far more often dressed in the 
uncouth sounds of retired life, than in the polished 
utterance of the town. Heaven has not made warm 
hearts, and honest hearts distinguishable by the quality 
of the covering. True diamonds need no work of the 
artificer to reflect, and multiply their rays. Goodness 
is more within, than without ; and purity is of nearer 
kin to the soul, than to the body. 



102 Dream-Life 



-And, Clarence, it may well happen, that later 



in life — under the gorgeous ceilings of Venetian 
churches, or at some splendid mass of Notre Dame, 
with embroidered coats, and costly silks around you, — 
your thoughts will run back to that httle storm-beaten 
church, and to the willow waving in its yard — with a 
Hope that glovjs ; — and with a tear, that you embalm ! 



VIII. 

.\ Home Scene. 

AND now I shall not leave this realm of boyhood, 
or suffer my hero to slip away from this gala 
time of his life, without a fair look at that Home where 
his present pleasures lie, and where all his dreams begin 
and end. 

Little does the boy know, as the tide of years drifts 
by, floating him out insensibly from the harbor of his 
home, upon the great sea of life, — what joys, what 
opportunities, what afifections, are sHpping from him 
into the shades of that inexorable Past, where no man 
can go, save on the wings of his dreams. Little does 
he think — and God be praised, that the thought does 
not sink deep hues in his young forehead ! — as he leans 
upon the lap of his mother, with his eye turned to her, 



104 Dream-Life. 

in some earnest pleading for a fancied pleasure of the 
hour, or in some important story of his griefs, that such 
sharing of his sorrows, and such sympathy with his 
wishes, he will find no where again. 

Little does he imagine, that the fond Nelly, ever 
thoughtful of his pleasure, ever smiling away his griefs 
— will soon be beyond the rea'Mi of either ; and that the 
waves of the years which come rocking so gently under 
him, will soon toss her far away, upon the great swell 
of Hfe. 

But noio, you are there. The fire-light glimmers 
upon the walls of your cherished home, like the Vestal 
fire of old upon the figures of adoring virgins, or 
like the flame of Hebrew sacrifice, whose incense bore 
hearts to Heaven. The big chair of your father is 
drawn to its wonted corner by the chimney side • 
his head, just touched with gray, lies back upon its 
oaken top. Little Nelly leans upon his knee, looking 
up for some reply to her girlish questionings. Oppo- 
site, sits your mother; her figure is thin, her look 
cheerful, yet subdued; — her arm perhaps resting on 
your shoulder, as she talks to you in tones of tender 
admonition, of the days that are to come. 

The cat is purring on the hearth ; the clock that 
ticked so plainly when Charlie died, is ticking on 
the mantel still. The great table in the middle of the 
j-oom, with its bool^s and work, wnits onlv for the 



A Home Scene. 105 

lighting of the evening lamp, to see a retmii to its 
stoves of embroidery, and of story. 

Upon a little stand under the mirror, which catches 
now and then a flicker of the fire-light, and makes 
it play, as if in wanton, upon the ceihng, hes that big 
book, reverenced of your New England parents — the 
Family Bible. It is a ponderous square volume, with 
heavy silver clasps, that you have often pressed open 
for a^look at its quaint old pictures, or for a study of 
those prettily bordered pages, which lie between the 
Testaments, and which hold the Family Record. 

There are the Births; — your father's, and your 
mother's ; it seems as if they were born a long time 
ago ; and even your own date of birth appears an al 
most incredible distance back. Then, there are the 
marriages ; — only one as yet ; and your mother's maiden 
name looks oddly to you : it is hard to think of her as 
any one else than your doting parent. You wonder if 
your name will ever come under that paging ; and 
wonder, though you scarce whisper the wondei' to your- 
self, how another name would look, just below yours 
— such a name for instance, as Fanny, — or as Miss 
Margaret Boyne ! 

Last of all, come the Deaths — only one. Poor 
Charhe! How it looks?— 'Died 12 September 18 — 
Charles Henry, aged four years.' You know just how 
it looks. You have turned to it often ; there, you seem 



106 Dream-Life. 

to be joined to hira, though only by the turning of a 
leaf. And over your thoughts, as you look at that 
page of the record, there sometimes wanders a vague 
shadowy fear, which ivill come, — that your own name 
may soon be there. You try to drop the notion, as if 
it were not fairly your own ; you affect to shght it, as 
you would slight a boy who presumed on your acquaint- 
ance, but whom you have no desire to know. It is a 
common thing, you will find, with our world, to decline 
famiharity with those ideas that fright us. 

Yet your mother — how strange it is ! — has no feai-s 
of such dark fancies. Even now, as you stand be- 
side her, and as the twilight deepens in the room, her 
low, silvery voice is steahng upon your ear, telling you 
that she cannot be long with you ; — that the time is 
coming, when you must be guided by your own judg- 
ment, and struggle with the world, unaided by the 
friends of your boyhood. There is a httle pride, and a 
great deal more of anxiety in your thoughts now, — as 
you look steadfastly into the home blaze, while those 
delicate fingers, so tender of your happiness, play with 
the locks upon your brow. 

To struggle with the world, — that is a proud 

thing ; to struggle alone, — there Hes the doubt ! Then, 
crowds in swift, upon the calm of boyhood, the first 
anxious thought of youth ; — then chases over the sky of 
Spring, the first heated, and wrathful cloud of Summer! 



A Home Scene. 107 

But the lamps are now lit in tlie little parloi', and 
they shed a soft haze to the farthest corner of the 
room ; while the fire light streams over the floor where 
puss lies purring. Little Madge is there ; she has 
dropped in softly with her mother, and Nelly has 
welcomed her with a bound, and with a kiss. Jenny 
hiis not so rosy a cheek as Madge. But Jenny with 
her love notes, and her languishing dark eye, you think 
of, as a lady ; and the thought of her is a constant drain 
upon your sentiment. As for Madge — that girl Madge, 
whom you know so well, — you think of her as a sister ; 
and yet — it is very odd, — you look at her far oftener 
than you do at Nelly ! 

Frank too has come in to have a game with you at 
draughts ; and he is in capital spirits, all brisk and 
glowing \vith his evening's walk. He, — bless his honest 
heart ! — never observes that you arrange the board 
very adroitly, so that you may keep half an eye upon 
Madge, as she sits yonder beside Nelly. Nor does he 
once notice your blush, as you catch her eye, when she 
raises her head to fling back the ringlett ; and then, 
with a sly look at you, bends a most earnest gaze upon 
the board, as if she were especially inteiested in the dis- 
position of the men. 

You catch a little of the spirit of co quetry yourself — 
(what a native growth it is !) and if she lift her eyes, 
when you are gazing at her, you very suddenly divert 



108 Dream-Life. 

your look to the cat at her feet ; and remark to your 
friend Frank, in an easy, off-hand way — how still the 
cat is lying ! 

xind Frank turns — thinking probably, if he thinks at 
all about it, that cats are very apt to lie still, when they 
sleep. 

As for Nelly, half neglected by your thought, as 
well as by your eye, while mischievous looking Madge 
is sitting by her, you little know as yet, what kind- 
ness — what gentleness, you are careless of. Few loves 
in hfe, and you will learn it before life is done, can 
balance the lost love of a sister. 

As for your parents, in the intervals of the game, you 
listen dreamily to their talk with the mother of Madge 
— good Mrs. Boyne. It floats over your mind, as you 
rest your chin upon your clenched hand, like a strain 
of old familiar music, — a household strain, that seems 
to belong to the habit of your ear, — a strain that will 
hnger about it melodiously for many years to come, — 
a strain that will be recalled long time hence, when 
life is earnes'o and its cares heavy, with tears of regret, 
and with sighs of bitterness. 

By and by your game is done ; and other games, in 
which join Nelly (the tears come when you write her 
name, noiv /) and Madge (the smiles come when you 
look on her then.) stretch out that sweet eventide of 
Home, until the lamp flickers, and you speak your fiieml- 



A H o iM E Scene. 109 

— adieu. To Madge, it is said boldly — a boldness put 
on to conceal a little lurking tremor; — but there is 
no tremor in the home good-night. 

Aye, my boy, kiss your mother — kiss her 

again ; — fondle your sweet Nelly ; — pass your little 
hand through the gray locks of your father; — love 
them dearly, while you can ! Make your good-nights 
linger; and make your adieus long, and sweet, and 
often repeated. Love with your whole soul, — Father, 
Mother, and Sister ; — for these loves shall die ! 

Not indeed in thought : — God be thanked I — 

Nor yet in tears, — for He is merciful ! But they shall 
die as the leaves die, — die as Spring dies into the heat, 
and ripeness of Summer, and as boy-hood dies into the 
elasticity and ambition of youth. J)eath, distance, and 
time, shall each one of them dig graves for your affec- 
tions ; but this you do not know, nor can know, until 
the story of your life is ended. 

The dreams of riches, of love, of voyage, of learning, 
that light up the boy-age with splendor, will pass on 
and over into the hotter dreams of youth. S]:)ring buds 
and blossoms under the glowing sun of April, nurture 
at their heart those firstlings of fruit, which the heat 
of summer shall ripen. 

You little know, — and for this you may well thank 
Heaven — that you are leaving the Spring of life, and 
that you ai-e floating fa^t from the shady sources of 



110 DrEAM-LiFE« r 

your years, into heat, bustle, and storm. Your dreams 
are now faint, flickering shadows, that play hke fii*e-flies 
in the coppices of leafy June. They have no rule, but 
the rule of infantile desire. They have no joys to 
promise, gi-eater than the joys that belong to your 
passing life ; they have no terrors, but such terrors as 
the darkness of a Spring night makes. They do not 
take hold on your soul, as the dreams of youth and 
manhood will do. 

Your highest hope is shadowed in a cheeifiil, boyish 
home. You wish no friends but the friends of boy- 
hood ; — no sister but your fond Nelly ; — none to love 
better than tlie playful Madge. 

You forget, Clarence, that the Spring with you, is 
the Spring with them ; and that the storms of Summer 
may chacc wide shadows over your path, and over 
their's. And you forget, that Summer is even now, 
lowering with its mist, and with its scorching rays, upon 
the hem of your flowery May ! 

The hands of the old clock upon the mantel, 



that ticked off" the houi*s when Charhe sighed, and 
when Charlie died, draw on toward midnight. The 
shadows that the fire-flame makes, grow dimmer 
and dimmej'. And thus it is, that Home, boy-home, 
passes away forever, — like the swaying of a pendulum, 
— like the fadinor of a shadow on the floor ! 



Summer ; 

ai)e Wxcams of goutl). 



DKEAMS OF YOUTH. 



Summer. 



I FEEL a great deal of pity for those honest, but 
misguided people, who call their httle, spruce 
suburban towns, or the shaded streets of their inland 
cities, — the country : and I have still more pity 
for those who reckon a season at the summer resorts — 
countiy enjoyment. Nay, my feehng is more violent 
than pity ; and I count it nothing less than blasphemy, 
so to take the name of the country in vain. 

I thank Heaven every summer's day of my life, 
that my lot was humbly cast, within the hearing of 
romping brooks, and beneath the shadow of oaks. 
And from all the tramp, and bustle of the world, into 
which fortune has led me in these latter years of my 
life, I delight to steal away for days, and for weeks 



114 Dream-Life. 

together, and bathe my spirit in the freedom of the old 
woods ; and to grow young ' again, lying upon the 
brook side, and counting the white clouds that sail 
along the sky, softly and tranquilly — even as holy 
memories go steahng over the vault of life. 

I am deeply thankful that I could never find it 
in my heart, so to pervert truth, as to call the 
smart villages witli the tricksy shadow of their maple 
avenues — the Country. 

I love these in their way; and can recall pleasant 
passages of thought, as I have idled through the 
Sabbath-looking towns, or lounged at the inn-door 
of some quiet New England village. But I love far 
better to leave them behind me ; and to dash boldly 
out to where some out-lying farm-house sits — like a 
witness — under the shelter of wooded hills, or nestles in 
the lap of a noiseless valley. 

In the town, small as it may be, and darkened as 
it may be with the shadows of trees, you cannot 
forget — men. Theii- voice, and strife, and ambition 
come to your eye in the painted paling, in the swinging 
sign-board of the tavern, and — worst of all — in the 
trim-printed " Attorney at Law." Even the little 
miUiner's shop, with its meagre show of leghorns, and 
its string across the window, all hung with tabs and 
with cloth roses, is a sad epitome of the great and con- 
ventional life of a city neighborhood. 



Summer. 115 

I like to be rid of them all, as I am rid of them this 
mid-summer's day. I like to steep ray soul in a sea 
of quiet, with nothing floating past me as I lie moored 
to my thought, but the perfume of flowers, and soaring 
birds, and shadows of clouds. 

Two days since, I was sweltering in the heat of the 
City, jostled by the thousand eager workers, and pant- 
ing under the shadow of the walls. But I have stolen 
away; and for two hours of healthful regrowth into 
the darling Past, I have been lying this blessed sum- 
mer's morning, upon the grassy bank of a stream that 

babbled me to sleep in boyhood. Dear, old 

stream, unchanging, unfaltering, — with no harsher 
notes now than then, — never growing old, — smihng in 
your silver rustle, and calming yourself in the broad, 
placid pools, — I love you, as I love a friend ! 

But now, that the sun has grown scalding hot, 
and the waves of heat have come rockino- under the 

o 

shadow of the meadow ^aks, I have sought shelter in a 
chamber of the old farm-house. The window-blinds 
are closed ; but some of them are sadly shattered, and 
I have intertwined in them a few branches of the 
late-blossoming, white Azaha, so that every pufF of the 
summer air comes to me cooled with fragrance. A 
dimple or two of the sunlight still steals through my 
flowery screen, and dances (as the breeze moves the 
branches) upon the oaken floor of the farm-house. 



116 Dre A M- Li FE. 

Through one Httle gap indeed, I can see the broad 
stretch of meadow, and the workmen in the field 
bending and swaying to their scythes. I can see too 
the ghstening of the steel, as they wipe their blades ; 
and can just catch floating on the air, the measured, 
tinkling thwack of the rifle stroke. 

Here and there a lark, scared from his feeding place 
in the grass, soars up, bubbhng forth his melody in 
o-lobules of silvery sound, and settles upon some tall 
tree, and waves his wings, and sinks to the swaying 
twigs. I hear too a quail piping from the meadow 
fence, and another trilling his answering whistle from 
the hills. Nearer by, a. tyrant king-bird is poised on 
the topmost branch of a veteran pear-tree ; and now 
and then dashes down assassin-like, upon some home- 
bound, honey-laden bee, and then, with a smack of his 
bill, resumes his predatory watch. 

A chicken or two lie in the sun, Avith a wing and 
a leg stretched out, — ^lazily picking at the gravel, or 
relieving their ennui from time to time, with a spas- 
modic rustle of their feathers. An old, matronly hen 
stalks about the yard with a sedate step ; and with 
quiet self-assurance, she utters an occasional series of 
hoarse, and heated clucks. A speckled turkey, with an 
astonished brood at her heels, is eyeing curiously, and 
with earnest variations of the head, a full-fed cat, that 



Summer. 117 

lies curled up, and dozing, upon the floor of the cottage 
porch. 

As I sit thus, watching through the interstices of iny 
leafy screen the various images of country life, I hear 
distant mutterings from beyond the hills. 

The sun has thrown its shadow upon the pewter 
dial, two hours beyond the meridian line. Great 
cream-colored heads of thunder clouds are lifting above 
the sharp, clear line of the western horizon : the light 
breeze dies away, and the air becomes stifling, even 
under the shadow of my withered boughs in the 
chamber window. The white-capped clouds roll up 
nearer and nearer to the sun ; and the creamy masses 
below grow dark in their seams. The muttering-s 
that came faintly before, now spread into wide volumes 
of ]-olling sound, that echo again, and again, from the 
eastward heights. 

I hear in the deep intervals, the men shouting to 
their teams in the meadows; and great companies 
of startled swallows are dashing in all directions around 
the gray roofs of the barn. 

The clouds have now well nigh reached the sun, 
which seems to shine the fiercer for his coming eclipse. 
The whole West, as I look from the sources of the 
brook, to its lazy drift under the swamps that He to 
the South, is hung with a curtain of darkness; and 



118 Dream-Life. 

like swift-working, golden ropes that lift it toward the 
Zenith, long chains of hghtning flash through it ; 
and the growing thunder seems Hke the rumble of the 
pulleys. 

I thrust away my azalia boughs, and fling back the 
shattered Winds as the sun and the clouds meet ; and 
my room darkens with the coming shadows. For an 
instant, the edges of the thick creamy masses of cloud 
are gilded by the shrouded sun, and show gorgeous 
scollops of gold, that toss upon the hem of the storm. 
But the blazonry fades as the clouds mount ; and the 
brightening lines of the lightning dart up from the 
lower skirts, and heave the billowy masses into the 
middle Heaven. 

The workmen are urging their oxen fast across the 
meadow ; and the loiterers come stragghng after, with 
rakes upon their shoulders. The matronly hen has 
retreated to the stable door ; and the brood of turkeys 
stand, dressing their feathers, under the open shed. 

The air freshens, and blows now from the face of the 
coming clouds. I see the great elms in the plain 
swaying their tops, even before the storm breeze has 
reached me ; and a bit of ripened grain upon a swell 
of the meadow, waves and tosses Hke a billowy sea. 

Presently, I hear the rush of the wind; and the 
cherry and pear trees rustle through all their leaves; 
and my paper is whisked away by the intruding blast. 



Summer. 119 

There is a quiet of a moment, in which the wind 
even, seems weary and faint ; and nothing finds 
utterance save one hoarse tree-toad, doling out his 
kigiibrious notes. 

Now comes a blinding flash from the clouds ; and a 
quick, sharp clang clatters through the heavens, and 
bellows loud, and long among the hills. Then, — like 
great grief, spending its pent agony in tears — come the 
big drops of rain : — pattering on the lawn, and on the 
leaves, and most musically of all, upon the roof above 
me; — not now, with the light fall of the Spring 
shower, but with strong steppings — like the first proud 
tread of Youth ! 



I. 

Cloister Life. 

IT has very likely occurred to you, my reader, that I 
am playing the wanton in these sketches; — and 
am breaking through all the canons of the writers, in 
making You my hero. 

It is even so ; for my work is a story of those vague 
feehngs, doubts, passions, which belong more or less to 
every man of us all ; and therefore it is, that I lay upon 
your shoulders the burden of these dreams. If this or 
that one, never belonged to your experience, — have 
patience for a while. I feel sure that others are 
coming, which will he like a truth upon your heart ; 
and draw you unwittingly — perhaps tearfully even — 
into the belief that You are indeed my hero. 

The scene now changes to the cloistev of a college ; — 



Cloister Life. 121 

not the gray, classic cloisters which lie along the banks 
of the Cam or the Isis — huge, battered hulks, on whose 
weather-stained decks, great captains of learning have 
fought away their lives ; nor yet the cavernous, 
quadrangular courts, that sleep under the dingy walls 
of the Sorbonne. 

The youth-dreams of Clarence, begin under the roof 
of one of those long, ungainly piles of brick and 
mortar, which make the colleges of New England. 

The floor of the room is rough, and divided by wide 
seams. The study table does not stand firmly, without 
a few spare pennies to prop it into solid footing. The 
book-case of stained fir-wood, suspended against the 
wall by cords, is meagrely stocked, with a couple of 
Lexicons, a pair of grammars, a Euclid, a Xenophon, 
a Homer, and a Livy. Beside these, are scattered 
about here and there, — a thumb-worn copy of British 
ballads, an odd volume of the Sketch Book, a clumsy 
Shakspeare, and a pocket edition of the Bible. 

With such apphances, added to the half score of 
Professors and Tutors who preside over the awful 
precincts, you are to work your way up to that proud 
entiy upon our American fife, which begins with the 
Baccalaureate degree. There is a tinghng sensation 
in walking first under the shadow of those walls, 
uncouth as they are, and in feehng that you belong to 
them ; — that you are a member, as it were, of the body 
6 



122 D R E A M-LlFE. 

corporate, subject to an actual code of printed laws, and 
to actual moneyed fines — varying from a shilling, to fifty 
cents ! 

There is something exhilarating in the very con- 
sciousness of your subject state ; and in the necessity of 
measuring your hours by the habit of such a learned 
community. You think back upon your respect for the 
lank figure of some old teacher of boy days, as a 
childish weakness : even the little coteries of the home 
fire-side, lose their importance, when compared with the 
extraordinary sweep, and dignity of your present 
position. 

It is pleasant to measure yourself with men ; and 
there are those about you, who seem to your untaught 
eye, to be men already. Your chum, a hard-faced 
fellow of ten more years than you, — digging sturdily at 
his tasks, seems by that very community of work, to 
dignify your labor. You watch his cold, gray eye 
bending down over some theorem of Euclid, with a 
kind of proud companionship, in what so tasks his 
manliness. 

It is nothing for him to quit sleep at the fii'st 
tinkhng of the alarm clock that hangs in your 
chamber ; or to brave the weather, in that cheerless run 
to the morning prayers of winter. Yet, with what a 
dreamy horroi', you wake on mornings of snow, to that 
tinkling alarum ! — and gUde in the cold and darkness, 



Cloister Life. 123 

under the shadow of the college walls : — shuddering 
under the sharp gusts that come sweeping between the 
buildings ; — and afterward, gathering yourself up in 
your cloak, to watch in a sleepy, listless maze, the 
flickering lamps that hang around the dreary chapel ! 
You follow half unconsciously some tutor's rhetorical 
reading of a chapter of Isaiah ; and then, as he closes 
the Bible with a flourish, your eye, half-open, catches 
the feeble figure of the old Domine, as he steps to the 
desk, and with his frail hands stretched out upon the 
cover of the big book, and his head leaning slightly to 
one side, runs through in gentle and tremulous tones, 
his wonted form of Invocation. 

Your Division room is steaming with foul heat, and 
there is a strong smell of burnt feathers, and oil. A 
jaunty tutor with pug nose, and consequential air, steps 
into the room — while you all rise to show him 
deference, — and takes his place at the pulpit-like desk. 
Then come the formal loosing of his camlet cloak clasp, — 
the opening of his sweaty Xenophon to where the day's 
parasangs begin, — the unshding of his silver pencil 
case, — the keen, sour look around the benches, and the 
cool pinch of his thumb and forefinger, into the fearful 
box of names ! 

How you listen for each as it is uttered, — running 
down the page in advance, — rejoicing when some hard 
passage comes to a stout man in the corner ; and what 



124 Dream-Life. 

a sigh of relief — on mornings after you have been out 
late at night, — when the last paragraph is reached, — 
the ballot drawn, and — you, safe ! 

You speculate dreamily upon the faces around you. 
You wonder what sort of schoohng they may have had, 
and what sort of homes. You think one man has got 
an extraordinary name ; and another, a still more 
extraordinary nose. The ghb, easy way of one student, 
and his perfect sang-froid^ completely charm you : you 
set him down in your own mind as a kind of Crichton. 
Another weazen-faced, pinched-up fellow in a scant 
cloak, you think must have been sometime a school- 
master : he is so very precise, and wears such an 
indescribable look of the ferule. There is one big 
student, with a huge beard, and a rollicking good- 
natured eye, who you would quite like to see measure 
strength with your old usher ; and on careful com- 
parison, rather think the usher would get the worst of 
it. Another appears as venerable as some fathers you 
have seen ; and it seems wonderfully odd, that a man 
old enouo;!! to have children, should recite Xenophon by 
morning candle-light ! 

The class in advance, you study curiously ; and are 
Quite amazed at the precocity of certain youths 
belonging to it, who are apparently about your own 
age. The Junioi-s you look upon, with a quiet rever- 
ence for their aplomb, and dignity of character ; and 



Cloister Life. 126 

look forward with intense yearnings, to the time when 
you too, shall be admitted freely to the precincts of the 
Philosophical chamber, and to the very steep benches 
of the Laboratory. This last, seems, from occasional 
peeps througli the blinds, a most mysterious building. 
The chimneys, recesses, vats, and cisterns — to say 
nothing of certain galvanic communications, which you 
are told, ti-averse the whole building — in a way capable 
of killing a rat, at an incredible remove from the bland 
professor, — utterly fatigue your wonder ! You humbly 
trust — though you have doubts upon the point — that 
you will have the capacity to grasp it all, when once 
you shall have arrived at the dignity of a Junior. 

As for the Seniors, your admiration for them is 
entirely boundless. In one or two individual instances, 
it is true, it has been broken down, by an unfortunate 
squabble, with thick set fellows in the Chapel aisle. 
A person who sits not far before you at prayers, 
and whose name you seek out very early, bears a 
strong resemblance to some portrait of Dr. Johnson; 
you have very much the same kind of respect for him, 
that you feel for the great lexicographer ; and do not 
for a moment doubt his capacity to compile a 
Dictionary equal if not superior to Johnson's. 

Another man wth very bushy, black hair, and an 
easy look of importance, carries a large cane ; and is 
represented to you, as an astonishing scholar, and 



126 Dream-Life. 

speaker. You do not doubt it ; his very air proclaims 
it. You think of him, as, presently — (say four or five 
years hence) — astounding the United States Senate 
with his eloquence. And when once you have heard 
him in debate, with that ineffable gesture of his, you 
absolutely languish in your admiration for him ; and 
you describe his speaking to your country friends, as 
very little inferior, if any, to Mr. Burke's. Beside 
this one, are some half dozen others, among whom the 
question of superiority is, you understand, strongly 
mooted. It puzzles you to think, what an avalanche 
of talent will fall upon the country, at the graduation 
of those Seniors ! 

You will find, however, that the country bears 
such inundations of college talent, with a remarkable 
degree of equanimity. It is quite wonderful how all 
the Burkes, and Scotts, and Peels, among college 
Seniors, do quietly disappear, as a man gets on in hfe. 

As for any degree of fellowship with such giants, 
it is an honor hardly to be thought of. But you have 
a classmate — I will call him Dalton, — who is very 
intimate with a dashing Senior ; they room near each 
other outside the college. You quite envy Dalton, 
and you come to know him well. He says that you 
are not a 'green-one,' — that you have 'cut your eye 
teeth' ; in return for which complimentary opinions, you 
entertain a strong friendship for Dalton. 



Cloister Life. 127 

He is a ' fast,' fellow, as the Senior calls him ; and it 
is a proud thing to happen at their rooms occasionally, 
and to match yourself for an hour or two (with the 
windows darkened) against a Senior at ' old sledge.' 
It is quite ' the thing' as Dalton says, to meet a Senior 
faraiharly in the street. Sometimes you go, after 
Dalton has taught you ' the ropes,' to have a cosy sit- 
down over oysters and champagne ; — to which the 
Senior lends himself, with the pleasantest condescension 
in the world. You are not altogether used to hard 
drinking ; but this, you conceal, — as most spirited young 
fellows do, — by drinking a great deal. You have a 
dim recollection of certain circumstances — very unim- 
portant, yet very vividly impressed on your mind, — 
which occurred on one of these occasions. 

The oysters were exceedingly fine, and the cham- 
pagne — exquisite. You have a recollection of some- 
thing being said, toward the end of the first bottle, of 
Xenophon, and of the Senior's saying in his playful 
way, — ' Oh, d — n Xenophon !' 

You remember Dalton laughed at this ; and you 
laughed — for company. You remember that you 
thought, and Dalton thought, and the Senior thought — 
by a singular coincidence, that the second bottle of 
champagne was better even than the first. You 
have a dim remembrance of the Senior's saying very 
loudly, " Clarence — (calhng you by your family name) 



128 Dream-Life. 

is no spooney;" and drinking a bumper with you in 
confirmation of the remark. 

You remember that Dalton broke out into a song, 
and that for a time you joined in the chorus ; you 
think the Senior called you to order for repeating 
the chorus, in the wrong place. You think the lights 
burned Avith remarkable brilHancy ; and you remember 
that a remark of yours to that effect, met with very 
much such a response from the Senior, as he had 
before employed with reference to Xenophon. 

You have a confused idea of calling Dalton — 
Xenophon. You think the meeting broke up with 
a chorus ; and that somebody — you cannot tell who — 
broke two or three glasses. You remember question- 
ing yourself very seriously, as to whether you were* 
or were not, tipsy. You think you decided that you 
were not, but — might be. 

You have a confused recollection of leaning upon 
some one, or something, going to your room; this 
sense of a desire to lean, you think was very strong. 
You remember being horribly afflicted with the idea 
of having tried your night key at the tutor's door, 
instead of your own; you remember further a hot 
stove, — made certain indeed, by a large blister which 
appeared on your hand, next day. You think of 
throwing off your clothes, by one or two spasmodic 
efforts, — leaning, in the intervals, against the bed-post. 



Cloister Life. 129 

There is a recollection of an uncommon dizziness 
afterward — as if your body was very quiet, and your 
head gyrating with strange velocity, and a kind of 
centrifugal action, all about the room, and the colloge, 
and indeed the whole town. You think that you felt 
uncontrollable nausea after this, followed by positive 
sickness ; — which waked your chum, who thought you 
very incoherent, and feared derangement. 

A dismal state of lassitude follows, broken by the 
college clock striking three, and by very rambling 
reflections upon champagne, Xenophon, ' Captain 
Dick,' Madge, and the old deacon who clinched his 
wig in the church. 

The next morning — (ah, how vexatious that all our 
follies are followed by a — ' next morning !') you 
wake with a parched mouth, and a torturing thirst; 
the sun is shining broadly into your reeking chamber. 
Prayers and recitations are long ago over ; and you 
see through the door, in the outer room, that hard 
faced chum, with his Lexicon, and Livy, open before 
him, working out with all the earnestness of his iron 
purpose, the steady steps toward preferment, and 
success. 

You go with some story of sudden sickness to the 
Tutor ; — half fearful that the bloodshot, swollen eyes 
will betray you. It is very mortifying too, to meet 
Dalton appearing so gay, and li^'ely after it all, while 



1 30 T) R E A M L I F E . 

you wear such an air of being * used up.' You envy 
him thoroughly the extraordinary capacity that he has. 

Here and there creeps in, amid all the pride and 
shame of the new hfe, a tender thought of the old 
home ; but its joys are joys no longer : its highest 
aspirations even, have resolved themselves into fine 
mist, — hke rainbows, that the sun drinks with his 
beams. 

The affection for a mother, whose kindness you recal 
with a suffused eye, is not gone, or blighted ; but it is 
woven up, as only a single adorning tissue, into the 
growing pride of youth : it is cherished in the proud 
soul, rather as a redeeming weakness, than as a vital 
energy. 

And the love for Nelly, though it bates no jot of 
fervor, is woven into the scale of growing purposes, 
rather as a color to adorn, than as a strand to 
strengthen. 

As for your other loves, those romantic ones, which 
were kindled by bright eyes, and the stolen reading of 
Miss Porter's novels, they linger on your mind like 
perfumes ; and they float down your memory, with the 
figure, the step, the last words of those young girls, who 
raised them, — like the types of some dimly-shadowed, 
but deeper passion, which is some time to spur your 
matui-er purposes, and to quicken your manly resolves. 

It would be hard to tell, for you do not as yet know, 



Cloister Life. 131 

but that Madge herself, — hoydenish, blue-eyed Madge, is 
to be the very one who will gain such hold upon your 
riper affections, as she has held already over your 
boyish caprice. It is a part of the pride, — I may say 
rather an evidence of the pride, which youth feels in 
leaving boyhood behind him, to talk laughingly, and 
carelessly, of those attachments which made his young 
A- ears so balmy with dreams. 



II. 

First Ambition. 

I BELIEVE that sooner or later, there come to 
every man, dreams of ambition. They may be 
covered with the sloth of habit, or with a pretence of 
hiimihty : they may come only in dim, shadowy visions, 
that feed the eye, hke the glories of an ocean sun-rise ; 
but, you may be sure that they will come : even before 
one is aware, the bold, adventurous Goddess, whose 
name is Ambition, and whose dower is Fame, will be 
toying with the feeble heart. And she pushes her 
ventures with a bold hand : she makes timidity strong, 
and weakness valiant. 

The way of a man's heart, will be foreshadowed by 
what goodness lies in him, — coming from above, and 
from around ; — but a way foreshadowed, is not a way 



First Ambition. 133 

made. And the making of a man's way, comes only 
fi-om that quickening of resolve, which we call Ambition. 
It is the spur that makes man struggle with Destiny : 
it is Heaven's own incentive, to make Purpose gTeat, 
and Achievement greater. 

It would be strange if you, in that cloister life of a 
college, did not sometimes feel a dawning of new 
resolves. They grapple you indeed, oftener than you 
dare to speak of. Here, you dream first of that very 
sweet, but veiy shadowy success, called reputation. 

You think of the dehght and astonishment, it would 
give your mother and father, and most of all, little 
Nelly, if you were winning such honors, as now escape 
you. You measure your capacities by those about you, 
and watch their habit of study ; you gaze for a half 
hour together, upon some successful man, who has won 
his prizes; and wonder by what secret action he has 
done it. And when, in time, you come to be a com- 
petitor yourself, your anxiety is immense. 

You spend hours upon hours at your theme. 
You write and re-wnte ; and when it is at length 
complete, and out of your hands, you are harassed 
by a thousand doubts. At times, as you recal your 
hours of toil, you question if so much has been spent 
upon any other; you feel almost certain of success. 
You repeat to yourself, some passages of special 
eloquence, at night. You fancy the admiration of 



134 Dream -Life. 

the Professors at meeting with such wonderful per- 
formance. You have a slight fear that its superior 
goodness may awaken the suspicion, that some one 
out of the college — some superior man, may have 
wi'itten it. But this fear dies away. 

The eventful day is a great one in your calendar; 
you hardly sleep the night previous. You tremble 
as the Chapel bell is rung; you profess to be very 
indifferent, as the reading, and the prayer close; you 
even stoop to take up your hat, — as if you had entirely 
overlooked the fact, that the old President was in the 
desk, for the express purpose of declaring the suc- 
cessful names. You listen dreamily to his tremulous, 
yet fearfully distinct enunciation. Your head swims 
strangely. 

They all pass out with a harsh murmur, along 
the aisles, and through the door ways. It would 
be well if there were no disappointments in hfe more 
teri'ible than this. It is consoling to express very 
deprecating opinions of the Faculty in general; — and 
very contemptuous ones of that particular officer who 
decided upon the meiit of the prize themes. An 
evening or two at Dalton's room go still farther toward 
healing the disappointment ; and — if it must be said — 
toward moderating the heat of your ambition. 

You grow up however, unfortunately, as the College 
years fly by, into a very exaggerated sense of youi- 



First Ambition. 136 

own capacities. Even the good, old, white-haired 
Squire, for whom you had once entertained so much 
respect, seems to your crazy, classic fancy, a \'ery 
hum-drum sort of personage. Frank, although as 
noble a fellow as ever sat a horse, is yet — you cannot 
help thinking — very ignorant of Euripides; even the 
English master at Dr. Bidlow's school, you feel sure 
would balk at a dozen problems you could give him. 

You get an exalted idea of that uncertain quality, 
which turns the heads of a vast many of your fellows, 
called — Genius. An odd notion seems to be inliercJit in 
the atmosjDhere of those College chambers, that there is 
a cei'tain faculty of mind — first developed as would 
seem in Colleges, — which accomplishes whatever it 
chooses, without any special pains-taking. For a time, 
you fall yourself into this very unfortunate hallucina- 
tion ; you cultivate it, after the usual college fashion, 
by drinking a vast deal of strong coflee, and whiskey 
toddy, — by writing a httle poor verse, in the Byronic 
temper, and by studying very late at night, with 
closed blinds. 

It costs you, however, more anxiety and hypocrisy 
than you could possibly have beheved. 

You will learn, Clarence, when the Autumn 

has rounded your hopeful Summer, if not before, that 
there is no Genius in life, like the Genius of energy and 
industry. You will learn, tliat all the traditions so 



136 Dream-Life. 

current among very young men, that certain great 
characters have wrought their greatness by an inspii-ation 
as it were, grow out of a sad mistake. 

And you will further find, when you come to 
measure yourself with men, that there are no rivals 
so formidable, as those earnest, determined minds, 
which reckon the value of every hour, and which 
achieve eminence by persistent application. 

Literary ambition may inflame you at certain periods ; 
and a thought of some great names will flash hke 
a spark into the mine of your purposes ; you dream till 
midnight over books ; you set up shadows, and chase 
them down — other shadows, and they fly. Dreaming 
will never catch them. Nothing makes the 'scent He 
well,' in the hunt after distinction, but labor. 

And it is a glorious thing, when once you are weary 
of the dissipation, and the ennui of your own aimless 
thought, to take up some glowing page of an earnest 
thinker, and read — deep, and long, until you feel the 
metal of his thought tinkhng on your brain, and striking 
out from your flinty lethargy, flashes of ideas, that give 
the mind hght and heat. And away you go, in tlie 
chase of what the soul within, is creating on the instant, 
and you wonder at the fecundity of what seemed so 
barren, and at the ripeness of what seemed so crude. 
The glow of toil wakes you to the consciousness of 
your real capacities : you feel sure that they have 



First Ambition. 137 

taken a new step toward final development. In such 
mood it is, that one feels grateful to the musty tomes, 
which at other hours, stand like curiosity-making 
mummies, ^vith no warmth, and no vitality. Now 
they grow into the affections like new-found friends ; 
and gain a hold upon the heart, and light a fire in the 
brain, that the years and the mould cannot cover, nor 
quench. 



III. 

College Romance. 

IN following the mental vagaries of youth, I must 
not forget the curvetings and wiltings of the heart. 
The black-eyed Jenny, with whom a correspondence 
at red heait, was kept up for several weeks, is long 
before this, entirely out of your regard ; — not so much 
by reason of the six months disparity of age, as from 
the fact, communicated quite confidentially by the 
travelled Nat, that she has had a desperate flirtation 
with a handsome midshipman. The conclusion is 
natural, that she is an inconstant, cruel-hearted creature, 
with Httle appreciation of real worth ; and further- 
more, that all midshipmen are a very contemptible, not 
to say, — dangerous set of men. She is consigned to 
forgetfulness and neglect ; and the late lover has long 



College Romance. 139 

ago consoled himself, by reading in a spirited way, that 
passage of Childe Hai'old, commencing, — 

I have not loved the world, nor the world me- 

As for Madge, the memory of her has been more 
wakeful, but less violent. To say nothing of occasional 
returns to the old homestead when you have met her, 
Nelly's letters not unfrequently drop a careless half- 
sentence, that keeps her strangely in mind. 

' Madge,' she says, ' is sitting by me with her work ;' 
or, * you ought to see the little, silk purse that Madge 
is knitting;' or, speaking of some country rout — 
'Madge was there in the sweetest dress you can 
imagine.' All this will keep Madge in mind ; not it is 
true in the ambitious moods, or in the frolics with 
Dalton ; but in those odd half hours that come steahng 
over one at twilight, laden with sweet memories of the 
days of old. 

A new Romantic admiration is started by those pale 
lady-faces which light up, on a Sunday, the gallery of 
the college chapel. An amiable and modest fancy, 
gives to them all a sweet classic grace. The very 
atmosphere of those courts, wakened with high meta- 
physic discourse, seems to lend them a Greek beauty, 
and finesse ; and you attacli to the prettiest that your 
eye can reach, all the charms of some Sciote maiden, 



140 Dream-Life. 

and all the learning of her father — the Professor. 
And as you lie half-wakeful, and half-dreaming, through 
the long Divisions of the Doctor's morning discourse, 
the twinkling eyes in some corner of the gallery, bear 
you pleasant company, as you float down those 
streaming visions, which radiate from you, far over the 
track of the coming life. 

But following very closely upon this, comes a whole 
volume of street romance. There are prettily shaped 
figures that go floating, at convenient hours for college 
observation, along the thoroughfares of the town. And 
these figures come to be known, and the dresses, and 
the streets ; and even the door-plate is studied. The 
houi-s are ascertained, by careful observation, and 
induction, at which some particular figure is to be met ; 
or is to be seen at some low parlor window, in white 
summer dress, with head leaning on the hand, — very 
melancholy, and very dangerous. Perhaps her very 
card is stuck proudly into a corner of the mirror, in the 
college chamber. After this may come moonlight 
meetings at the gate, or long listenings to the plaintive 
lyrics that steal out of the parlor windows, and that 
blur wofuUy the text of the Conic Sections. 

Or, perhaps she is under the fierce eye of some 
Cerberus of a school mistress, about whose grounds 
you prowl piteously, searching for small knot holes 
in the surrounding board-fence, through which little 



College Romance. 141 

souvenii's of impassioned feeling may be thrust. 
Sonnets are written for the town papers, full of telling 
phrases, and with classic allusions, and foot notes, which 
draw attention to some similar felicity of expression in 
Horace, or Ovid. Correspondence may even be ven- 
tured on, enclosing locks of hair, and interchanging 
rings, and paper oaths of eternal fidehty. 

But the old Cerberus is very wakeful : the letters 
fail : the lamp that used to glimmer for a sign among 
the sycamores, is gone out : a stolen wave of a 
handkerchief, — a despairing look, — and tears, which 
you fancy, but do not see, — make you iniserable for 
long days. 

The tyrant teacher, with no trace of compassion in 
her withered heart, reports you to the college authorities. 
There is a long lecture of admonition upon the folly of 
such dangerous practices ; and if the offence be aggra- 
vated by some recent joviality with Dalton and the 
Senior, you are condemned to a month of exile with a 
country clergyman. There are a few tearful regrets 
over the painful tone of the home letters ; but the 
bracing country air, and the pretty faces of the village 
girls heal your heart, — with fresh wounds. 

The old Doctor sees dimly through his spectacles ; 
and his pew gives a good look out upon the smiling 
choir of singers. A collegian wears the honors of a 
stranger ; and the country bucks stand but poor chance 



142 Dream -Life. 

in contrast with your wonderful attainments in cravats 
and verses. But this fresh dream, odorous with its 
memories of sleigh-rides, or hlac blossoms, slips by, and 
yields again to the more ambitious dreams of the 
cloister. 

In the prouder moments that come, when you are 
more a man, and less a boy — with more of strategy 
and less of faith — your thought of woman runs loftily : 
not loftily in the realm of virtue or goodness, but loftily 
on your new world-scale. The pride of intellect that is 
thirsting in you, fashions ideal graces after a classic 
model. The heroines of fable are admired ; and the 
soul is tortured with that intensity of passion, which 
gleams throusjh the broken utterances of Grecian 
tragedy. 

In the vanity of self-consciousness, one feels at a long 
remove above the ordinary love and trustfulness of a 
simple and pure heart. You turn away from all such 
with a sigh of conceit, to graze on that lofty, but bitter 
pasturage, where no daisies grow. Admiration may be 
called up by some graceful figure that you see moving 
under those sweeping elms ; and you follow it with an 
intensity of look that makes you blush ; and straight- 
way, hide the memory of the blush, by summing up 
some artful sophistiy, that resolves your delighted 
gaze into a weakness, and your contempt into a virtue. 

B'lt this cannot last. As the years drop off, a 



College Romance. 143 

certain paii- of eyes beam one day upon you, that seem 
to have been cut out of a page of Greek poetry. They 
have all its sentiment, its fire, its intellectual react ;S : it 
would be hard to say what they have not. The profile, 
is a Greek profile ; and the heavy chestnut hair is 
plaited in Greek bands. The figure too, might easily 
be that of Helen, or of Andromache. 

You gaze — ashamed to gaze ; and your heart yearns 
— ashamed of its yearning. It is no young girl, who is 
thus testing you : there is too much pride for that. 
A ripeness, and maturity rest upon her look, and 
figure, that completely fill up that ideal, which 
exaggerated fancies have wrought out of the Grecian 
heaven. The vision steals upon you at all hours, — 
now rounding its flowing outline to the mellifluous 
metre of Epic Hexameter, and again, with its bounding 
life, pulsating with the glorious dashes of tragic verse. 

Yet, with the exception of stolen glances, and secret 
admiration, you keep aloof. There is no wish to 
fathom what seems a happy mystery. There Mes a 
content in secret obeisance. Sometimes it shames you, 
as your mind glows with its fancied dignity ; but the 
heart thrusts in its voice ; and yielding to it, you dream 
dreams, like fond, old Boccacio's, upon the olive-shaded 
slopes of Italy. The tongue even, is not trusted with 
the thoughts that are seething within : they begin and 
end in the voiceless pulsations of your nature. 



144 Dream-Life. 

After a time, — it seems a long time, but it is in 
truth, a very short time, — you find who she is, who is 
thus entrancing you. It is done most carelessly. No 
creature could imagine that you felt any interest in the 
accomplished sister — of your friend Dalton. Yet it is 
even she, who has thus beguiled you ; and she is at 
least some ten years Dalton's senior ; and by even more 
years, — your own ! 

It is singular enough, but it is true, — that the affec- 
tions of that transition state from youth to manhness, 
run toward the types of maturity. The mind in its 
reaches toward strength, and completeness, creates a 
heart-sympathy — which, in its turn, craves fullness. 
There is a vanity too about the first steps of manly 
education, which is disposed to under-rate the innocence, 
and unripened judgment of the other sex. Men see 
the mistake, as they grow older ; — for the judgment 
of a woman, in all matters of the affections, ripens by 
ten years, faster than a man's. 

In place of any relen tings on such score, you are 
set on fire anew. The stories of her accomplishments, 
and of her grace of conversation, absolutely drive you 
mad. You watch your occasion for meeting her upon 
the street. You wonder if she has any conception 
of your capacity for mental labor ; and if she has any 
adequate idea of your admiration for Greek poetry, 
and for herself? 



College Romance. 145 

You tie 'your cravat poet-wise, and wear broad 
collai-s, turned down, wondering how such disposition 
may affect her. Her figure and step become a kind 
of moving romance to you, drifting forward, and 
outward into that great land of dreams, which you 
call the woi'ld. When you see her walking with 
others, you pity her ; and feel perfectly sure that if 
she had only a hint of that intellectual fervor which 
in your own mind, blazes up at the very thought 
of her, she would perfectly scorn the stout gentleman 
who spends his force in tawdry compliments. 

A visit to your home wakens ardor, by contrast, 
as much as by absence. Madge, so gentle, and now 
steahng sly looks at you, in a way so different from 
her hoydenish manner of school-days, you regard 
complacently, as a most lovable, fond girl — the very 
one for some fond and amiable young man, whose soul 
is not filled — as youi*s is — with higher things ! To 
Nelly, earnestly listening, you drop only exaggerated 
hints of the wonderful beauty, and dignity of this new 
being of your fancy. Of her age, you scrupulously say 
nothing. 

The trivialities of Dal ton amaze you ; it is bard to 

understand how a man within the limit of such 

influences, as Miss Dalton must inevitably exert, can 

tamely sit down to a rubber of whist, and cigars ! 

1 



146 Due A jvi -Li F E . 

There must be a sad lack of congeniality ; it would 
certainly be a proud thing to supply that lack ! 

The new feeling, wild and vague as it is, — for as yet, 
you have only most casual acquaintance with Laura 
Dalton, — invests the whole habit of your study; not 
quickening overmuch the rehsh for Dugald Stewart, or 
the miserable skeleton of college Logic ; but spending 
a sweet charm upon the graces of Rhetoric, and the 
music of Classic Verse. It blends harmoniously with 
your quickened ambition. There is some last appear- 
ance that you have to make upon the College stage, 
in the presence of the great worthies of the state, and 
of all the beauties of the town, — Laura chiefest among 
them. In view of it, you feel dismally intellectual. 
Prodigious faculties are to be brought to the task. 

You think of throwing out ideas that will quite 
startle His Excellency the Governor, and those very 
distinguished public characters, whom the College 
purveyors vote into their periodic public sittings. You 
are quite sure of surprising them, and of deeply pro- 
voking such scheming, shallow politicians, as have never 
read ' Wayland's Treatise ;' and who venture incautiously, 
within hearing of your remarks. You fancy yourself in 
advance, the victim of a long leader in the next day's 
paper ; and the thoughtful, but quiet cause of a great 
change in the political progi'amme of the State. But 
crowning and eclipsing all the triumph, are those dark 



College Romance. 14*7 

eyes beaming on you from some corner of the Church, 
their floods of unconscious praise and tenderness. 

Your father and Nelly are there to greet you. He 
has spoken a few calm, quiet words of encouragement, 
that make you feel — very wrongfully — that he is a 
cold man, with no earnestness of feehng. As for Nelly, 
she clasps your arm with a fondness, and with a pride, 
that tell at every step, her praises and her love. 

But even this, true and healthful as it is, fades 
before a single word of commendation from the new 
arbitress of your feeling. You have seen Miss Dalton ! 
You have met her on that last evening of your cloistered 
life, in all the elegance of ball costume ; your eye has 
feasted on her elegant figure, and upon her eye 
sparkling with the consciousness of beauty. You have 
talked with Miss Dalton about Byron, — about Words- 
worth, — about Homer. You have quoted poetry to 
Miss Dalton ; you have clasped Miss Dalton's hand I 

Her conversation delights you by its piquancy and 
grace ; she is quite ready to meet you (a grave matter 
of surprise !) upon whatever subject you may suggest. 
You lapse easily and lovingly into the cui-rent of her 
thought, and blush to find yourself vacantly admiring, 
when she is looking for reply. The regard you feel for 
her, resolves itself into an exquisite mental love, vastly 
superior as you think, to any other kind of love. 
There is no dream of marriage as yet, but only of 



148 DuEAM-LlFE. 

sitting beside her in the mooiiHght, during a countless 
succession of hours, and talking of poetry and natm-e, — 
of destiny, and love. 

Magnificent Miss Dalton ! 

And all the while, vaunting youth is almost 

mindless of the presence of that fond Nelly, whose 
warm sisterly affection measures itself hopefully against 
the proud associations of your growing years; and 
whose deep, loving eye half suffused with its native 
tenderness, seems longing to win you back to the old 
joys of that Home-love, which linger on the distant 
horizon of your boy-hood, hke the golden glories of a 
sinking day. 

As the night wanes, you wandei", for a last look, 
toward the dingy walls, that have made for you so long 
a home. The old broken expectancies, the days of 
glee, the triumphs, the rivalries, the defeats, the friend- 
ships, are recalled with a fluttering of the heart, that 
pride cannot wholly subdue. You step upon the 
Chapel-porch, in the quiet of the night, as you would 
step on the graves of friends. You pace back and 
forth in the wan moonlight, dreaming of that dim life 
which opens wide and long, from the morrow. The 
width and length oppress you : they crush down your 
struggling self-consciousness, like Titans dealing with 
Pigmies. A single piercing thought of the vast and 
shadowy future which is so near, tears off on the 



College Romance. 149 

instant all the gew-gaws of pride, — strips away the 
vanity that doubles your bigness, and forces you down 
to the bare nakedness of what you truly are ! 

With one more yearning look at the gray hulks of 
building, you loiter away under the trees. The 
monster elms which have bo were d your proud steps 
through four years of proudest life, lift up to the night 
their rounded canopy of leaves, with a quiet majesty 
that mocks you. They kiss the same calm sky, which 
they wooed four years ago; and they droop their 
traihng limbs lovingly to the same earth, which 
has steadily, and quietly, wrought in them their stature, 
and their strength. Only here and there, you catch 
the loitering foot-fall of some other benighted dreamer, 
strolling around the vast quadrangle of level green, 
which hes like a prairie-child, under the edging shadows 
of the town. The hghts glimmer one by one ; and 
one by one — hke breaking hopes — they fade away 
fi'om the houses. The full risen moon that dapples the 
ground beneath the trees, touches tlie tall church 
spires with silver; and slants their loftiness — as 
memory slants grief — in long, dark, tapering lines, upon 
the silvered Green. 



IV. 

First Look at the World. 

OUR Clarence is now fairly afloat upon the swift 
tide of Youth. The thrall of teachers is ended, 
and the audacity of self-resolve is begun. It is not 
a httle odd, that when we have least strength to 
combat the world, we have the highest confidence in 
our ability. 

Very few individuals in the world, possess that 
happy consciousness of their own prowess, which 
belongs to the newly graduated Collegian. He has 
most abounding faith in the tricksy panoply that he 
has wrought out of the metal of his Classics. His 
mathematics, he has not a doubt, will solve for him 
eveiy complexity of life's questions ; and his logic will 
as certainly untie all gordian knots, whether in pohtics 
or ethics. 



First Look at the World. 151 

He has no idea of defeat ; he proposes to take the 
world by storm ; he half wonders that quiet people 
ai-e not startled by his presence. He brushes with an 
air of importance about the halls of country hotels ; 
he wears his honor at the public tables ; he fancies that 
the inattentive guests can have httle idea that the 
young gentleman, who so recently dehghted the pubhc 
ear with his dissertation on the " General tendency of 
Opinion," is actually among them ; and quietly eating 
from the same dish of beef, and of pudding ! 

Our poor Clarence does not know — heaven forbid he 
should ! — that he is but little wiser now, than ^when he 
turned his back upon the old Academy, with its galli- 
pots and broken retorts; and that with the addition 
of a few Greek roots, a smattering of Latin, and some 
readiness of speech, he is almost as weak for breasting 
the strong current of life, as when a boy. America 
is but a poor place for the romantic book- dreamer. 
The demands of this new. Western Hfe of oui-s, are 
practical, and earnest. Prompt action, and ready tact, 
are the weapons by which to meet it, and subdue it. 
The education of the cloister offers at best, only a sound 
starting point, from which to leap into the tide. 

The father of Clarence is a cool, matter-of-fact man. 
He has little sympathy with any of the romantic notions 
that enthrall a youth of twenty. He has a very 
humble opinion — much humbler than you think he 



152 Dkeam-Life. 

ought — of your attainments at College. He advises a 
short period of travel, that by observation, you may 
find out more, how that world is made up, with which 
you are henceforth to struggle. 

Your mother half fears your alienation from the 
affections of home. Her letters all run over with a 
tenderness that makes you sigh, and that makes you 
feel a deep reproach. You may not have been 
wanting m the more ordinary tokens of affection ; you 
have made your periodic visits ; but you blush for the 
consciousness that fastens on you, of neglect at heart. 
You blush for the lack of that glow of feeling, which 
once fastened to every home-object. 

[Does a man indeed outgrow affections as his mind 
ripens ? Do the early and tender sympathies become 
a part of his intellectual perceptions, to be appieciated 
and reasoned upon, as one reasons about truths of 
science ? Is their vitaUty necessarily young ? Is thei-e 
the same ripe, joyous burst of the heart, at the recol- 
lection of later friendships, which belonged to those of 
boyhood ; and are not the later ones more the suggest- 
ions of judgment, and less, the absolute conditions 
of the heart's health ?] 

The letters of your mother, as I said, make you sigh : 
there is no moment in om' Hves when we feel less 
worthy of the love of others, and less worthy of our 
own respect, than when we receive evidences of kind- 



First Look at the World. 153 

ness, which \vj know we do not merit ; and when souls 
are laid bare to us, and we have too much indifference 
to lay bare our own in return. 

" Clarence" — writes that neglected mother — " you do 
not know how much you are in our thoughts, and how 
often you are the burden of my prayers. Oh, Clarence, 
I could almost wish that you were still a boy — still 
runnmg to me for those little favors, which I was only 
too happy to bestow, — still dependent in some degree 
on your mother's love, for happiness. 

" Perhaj^s I do you wrong, Clarence, but it does seem 
from the changing tone of your letters that you are 
becoming more and more forgetful of us all ; — that you 
are feeling less need of our advice, and — what I feel 
far more deeply — less need of our affection. Do not, 
my son, forget the lessons of home. There will come a 
time, I feel sure, when you will know that those 
lessons are good. They may not indeed help you in 
that intellectual strife which soon will engross you ; and 
they may not have fitted you to shine in what are 
called the brilliant circles of the world ; but they are 
such, Clarence, as make the heart pure, and honest, and 
strong ! 

" You may think me weak to write you thus, as I 
would have written to my light-hearted boy, years ago ; 
— ^indeed I am not strong, but growing every day 
more feeble. 

7* 



154 Dre am-Life. 

" Nelly, your sweet sister, is sitting by me : ' Tell 
Clarence,' she says, ' to come home soon.' You know, 
my son, what hearty welcome will greet you ; and that 
whether here, or away, our love and prayei-s will be 
with you always ; and may God, in his infinite mercy 
keep you from all harm 1" 

A tear or two, — brushed away, as soon as they 
come, — is all that youth gives, to embalm such trea- 
sure of love ! A gay laugh, or the challenge of some 
compauion of a daj^, will sweep away into the night, 
the earnest, regretful, yet happy dreams, that rise like 
incense from the pages of sucli hallowed affection. 

The brusque world too is to be met, with all 
its hurry and promptitude. Manhood, in our swift 
American world, is measured too much by forgetfulness 
of all the sweet liens which tie the heart to the home 
of its first attachments. We deaden the glow that 
nature has kindled, lest it may lighten our heai-ts into 
an enchanting flame of weakness. We have not 
learned to make that flame the beacon of our jDurposes, 
and the warmer of our strength. We are men too 
early. 

But an experience is approaching Clarence, that 
will drive his heart home for shelter, like a wounded 
bird ! 

It is an autumn morning, with such crimson 

glories to kindle it, as lie along the twin i-anges of 



First Look at the World. 155 

inountain that guard the Hudson. The white frosts shine 
hke changing silk, in the fields of late growing clover ; 
the river mists curl, and idle along the bosom of the 
water, and creep up the hill sides ; and at noon, float 
their feathery vapors aloft, in clouds ; the crimson trees 
blaze in the side valleys, and blend their vermilUon 
tints under the fairy hands of our American frost- 
painters, with the dark blood of the ash trees, and the 
orange tinted oaks. Blue and bright, under the clear 
Fall heaven, the broad river shines before the surging 
prow of the boat, like a shield of steel. 

The bracing air lights up rich dreams of hfe. Your 
fancy peoples the valleys, and the hill-tops with its 
creations ; and your hope lends some crowning beauty 
of the landscape, to your dreamy future. The vision 
of your last college year is not gone. That figure 
whose elegance your eyes then feasted on, still floats 
before you; and the memory of the last talk with 
Laura, is as vivid, as if it were only yesterday, that you 
hstened. Indeed, this opening campaign of travel, — 
although you are half ashamed to confess it to your- 
self, — is guided by the thought of her. 

Dalton, with a party of friends, his sister among 
them, are journeying to the north. A hope of meeting 
them — scarce acknowledged as an intention — spurs you 
on. The eye i-ests dreamily, and vaguely on the 
beauties that appear at every turn : they are beauties 



156 Dream-Life. 

that charm j^ou, and charm you the more by an 
indefinable association with that fairy object that floats 
before you, half unknown, and wholly unclaimed. 
The quiet towns, with their noon-day stillness, the 
out-lying mansions with their stately splendor, the 
busthng cities with their mocking din, and the long 
reaches of silent, and wooded shore, chime with their 
several beauties to your heart, in keeping with the 
master key, that was touched long weeks before. 

The cool, honest advices of the father, drift across 
your memory in shadowy forms, as you wander through 
the streets of the first northern cities ; and all the need 
for observation, and the incentives to purpose, which 
your ambitious designs would once have quickened, 
fade dismally, when you find that she is not there. All 
the lax gaiety of Saratoga palls on the appetite : even 
the magnificent shores of Lake George, though stirring 
your spirit to an insensible wonder and love, do not 
cheat you into a trance that lingers. In vain, the sun 
blazons every isle, and lights every shaded cove, and at 
evening, stretches the Black mountain in giant slumber 
on the watei-s. 

Your thought bounds away from the beauty of sky 
and lake, and fastens upon the ideal which your dreamy 
humors cherish. The very glow of pursuit heightens 
your fervor : — a, fervor that dims sadly the new-wakened 
memories of home. The southern gates of Champlain, 



First Look at the World. 157 

those fir-draped Trosachs of America, are passed, and 
you find yourself upon a golden evening of Canadian 
autumn, in the quaint old city of Montreal. 

Dalton, with his party, has gone down to Quebec. 
He is to return within a few days, on his way to 
Niagara. There is a letter from Nelly waiting you. 
It says : — ' Mother is much more feeble : she often 
speaks of your return, in a way that I am sure, if you 
heard, Clarence, would bring you back to us soon.' 

There is a struggle in your mind : old aftection is 
weaker than young pride and hope. Moreover, the 
world is to be faced : the new scenes ai-ound you are to 
be studied. An answer is penned full of kind remem- 
brances, and begging a few days of delay. You 
wander, wondering, under the quaint old houses, and 
wishing for the return of Dalton. 

He meets you with that happy, careless way of his — 
the dangerous way which some men are born to, — and 
which chimes easily to every tone of the world : — a way 
you wondered at once ; a way, you admire now, and p. 
way, that you will distrust, as you come to see more of 
men. Miss Dalton — (it seems sacrilege to call her 
Laura) — is the same elegant being that entranced you 
first. 

They urge you to join their party. But there is no 
need of urgence : those eyes, that figur(.^, the whole 
presence indeed of Miss Dalton, attract you with a 



158 Dream-Life. 

power which you can neither explain, nor resist. One 
look of grace enslaves you ; and there is a strange 
pride in the enslavement. 

Is it dream, or is it earnest, — those moon-Ht 

walks upon the hills that skirt the city, when you watch 
the stai*s, listening to her voice, and feel the pressure of 
that jewelled hand upon your arm ? — when you drain 
your memory of its whole stock of poetic beauties, to 
lavish upon her ear ? Is it love, or is it madness, when 
you catch her eye, as it beams more of eloquence than 
lies in all your moonlight poetry, and feel an exultant 
gush of the heart, that makes you proud as a man, and 
yet timid as a boy, beside her ? 

Has Dalton with that calm, placid, nonchalant look 
of his, any inkling of the raptures, which his elegant 
sister is exciting ? Has the stout, elderly gentleman 
who is so prodigal of his bouquets, and attentions, any 
idea of the formidable rival that he has found ? Has 
Laura herself — you dream — any conception of that 
intensity of admiration with which you worship ? 

Poor Clarence ! it is his first look at Life ! 

The Thousand Isles with their leafy beauties, lie 
around your passing boat, hke the joys that skirt us 
and pass us, on our way through hfe. The Thousand 
Isles rise sudden before you, and fringe your yeasty 
track, and drop away into floating spectres of beauty — 



First Look at the World. 159 

of haze — of distance, like those dreams of joy, thai 
your passion lends the brain. The low banks of 
Ontario look sullen by night ; and the moon, rising 
ti-anquilly over the tops of vast forests that stand in 
majestic ranks over ten thousand acres of shore-land, 
drips its silvery sparkles along the rocking waters, and 
flashes across your foamy wake. 

With such attendance, that subdues for the time the 
dreamy forays of your passion, you draw toward the 
sound of Niagara ; and its distant, vague roar coming 
through great aisles of gloomy forest, bears up your 
spirit, like a child's, into the Highest Presence. 

The morning after, you are standing with your party 
upon the steps of the Hotel. A letter is handed to 
you. Dal ton remarks in a quizzical way, that ' it shows 
a lady's hand.' 

" Aha, a lady !" says Miss Dalton ; — and so gaily ! 

" A sister," I say ; for it is Nelly's hand. 

" By the by, Clarence," says Dalton, " it was a 
very pretty sister, you gave us a glimpse of at 
commencement." 

" Ah, you think so," and there is something in your 
tone, that shows a little indignation at this careless 
mention of your fond Nelly ; — and from those lips ! 
It will occur to you again. 

A single glance at the letter blanches your cheek. 
Your heart throbs : — throbs haj-der, — throbs tumultu- 



160 Dre A M -Life. 

ously. You bite your lip ; for there are lookers on. 
But it will not do. You hurry away : you find your 
chamber : you close and lock the door, and burst into 
a flood of tears. 



V. 

A Broken Home. 

IT is Nelly's own fair hand, yet sadly blotted; — 
blotted with her tears, and blotted with yours. 

" It is all over, dear, dear Clarence ! oh, how I 

wish yon were here to mourn with us ! I can hardly 
now beheve that our poor mother is indeed dead." 

Dead ! — It is a terrible word ! You repeat it^ 

with a fresh burst of grief. The letter is crumpled in 
your hand. — Unfold it again, sobbing, and read on. 

" For a week, she had been failing every day ; but 
on Saturday, we thought her very much better. I told 
her, I felt sure she would live to see you again. 

' I shall never see him again, Nelly,' said she, 
bui-sting into tears." 

Ah, Clarence, where is your youthful pride, and 



162 Dream-Life. 

your sti'eiigth now ? — with only tliat frail paper to 
annoy yon, crushed in your grasp ! 

" She sent for Father, and taking his hand in hers, 
told him she was dying. I am glad you did not see 
his grief. I was kneeling beside her, and she put her 
hand upon my head, and let it rest there for a moment, 
while her hps moved, as if she were praying. 

' Kiss me, Nellj^,' said she, growing fainter : ' kiss me 
again for Clarence.' 

" A little while after she died." 

For a long time you remain with only that letter, 
and your thought for company. You pace up and 
down your chamber : again you seat yourself, and lean 
your head upon the table, enfeebled by the very grief, 
that you cherish still. The whole day passes thus : 
you excuse yourself from all companionship : you have 
not the heart to tell the story of your troubles to 
Dalton, — least of all, to Miss Dalton. How is this? 
Is sorrow too selfish, or too holy ? 

Toward night-fall there is a calmer, and stronger 
feeling. The voice of the present world comes to your 
ear again. But you move away from it unobserved to 
that stronger voice of God, in the Cataract. Great 
masses of angry cloud hang over the West ; but 
beneath them the red harvest sun shines over the long 
reach of Canadian shore, and bathes the whirhng 
rapids in splendor. You stroll alone over the quaking 



A Broken Home. 163 

bridge, and under the giant trees of the Island, to the 
edge of the Britisli Fall. Yon go out to the little 
shattered tower, and gaze down with sensations that 
will last till death, upon the deep emerald of those 
awful masses of water. 

It is not the place for a bad man to ponder : it 
is not the atmosphere for foul thoughts, or weak ones. 
A man is never better than when he has the humblest 
sense of himself : he is never so unlike the spirit of 
Evil, as when his pride is utterly vanished. You 
linger, looking upon the stream of fading sunlight that 
plays across the rapids, and down into the shadow of 
the depths below, lit up with their clouds of spray : — 
yet farther down, your sight swims upon the black 
eddying masses, with white ribands streaming across 
their glassy surface; and your dizzy eye fastens upon 
the frail cockle shells, — their stout oarsmen dwindled to 
pigmies, — that dance hke atoms upon the vast chasm, — 
or like your own weak resolves upon the whirl of Time. 

Your thought, growing broad in the view, seems to 
cover the whole area of life ; you set up your affections 
and your duties ; you build hopes with faiiy scenery, 
and away they all go, tossing like the relentless waters 
to the deep gulf, that gapes a hideous welcome ! You 
sigh at your weakness of heart, or of endeavoi", and 
vour sighs float out into the breeze that rises ever from 
the shock of the waves, and whirl, empty-handed, to 



164 Dream-Life. 

Heaven. You avow high jDurposes, and clench them 
with round utterance ; and your voice like a sparrow's, 
is caught up in the roar of the fall, and thrown at you 
from the cliffs, and dies away in the solemn thunders 
of nature. Great thoughts of life come over you — of 
its work and destiny — of its affections and duties, and 
roll down swift — like the river — into the deep whirl 
of doubt and danger. Other thoughts, gi-ander and 
stronger, like the continuing rush of waters, come over 
you, and knit your purposes together with their weight, 
and crush you to exultant tears, and then leap, 
shattered and bi'oken, from the very edge of your 
intent, — into mists of fear ! 

The moon comes out, and gleaming through the 
clouds, braids its hght, fantastic bow upon the waters. 
You feel calmer as the night deepens. The darkness 
softens you ; it hangs — hke the pall that shrouds your 
mother's corpse, — low and heavily to your heart. It 
helps your inward grief, with some outward show. It 
makes the earth a mourner; it makes the flashing 
water-drops so many attendant mourners. It makes 
the Great Fall itself a mourner, and its roar — a 
requiem ! 

The pleasure of travel is cut short. To one person 
of the little company of fellow voyagers, you bid adieu 
with regret ; pride, love, and hope point toward her, 
while all the gentler affections stray back to the broken 



A Broken Home. 165 

home. Her smile of parting is very gracious, but it is 
not after all, such smile as your warm heart pines for. 

Ten days after, you arc walking toward the old 
homestead, with such feehngs as it never called up 
before. In the days of boyhood, there were b-iumphant 
thoughts of the gladness, and the pride, ^Aith which, 
when grown to the stature of manhood, you would 
come back to that httle town of your birth. As you 
have bent with your dreamy resolutions over the tasks 
of the cloister hfe, swift thoughts have flocked on you 
of the proud step, and prouder heart, with which you 
would one day greet the old acquaintances of boyhood ; 
and you have regaled yourself on the j-aunty manner 
with which you would meet old Dr. Bidlow ; and the 
patronizing' air, with which you would address the 
pretty, blue-eyed Madge. 

It is late afternoon when you come in sight of the 
tall sycamores that shade your home ; you shudder 
now lest you may meet any whom you once knew. 
The fii'st, keen grief of youth seeks httle of the sym- 
pathy of companions : it hes — with a sensitive man, — 
bounded within the narrowest circles of the heart. 
They only who hold the key to its innermost recesses 
can speak consolation. Yeare will make a change ; — 
as the summer grows in fierce heats, the balminess of 
the violet banks of Spiing, is lost in the odors of a 



166 Dream-Life. 

thousand flowers ; — the heart, as it gains in age, loses 
freshness, but wins breadth. 

Throw a pebble into the brook at its source, and 

the agitation is terrible, and the ripples chafe madly 
their narrowed banks ; — throw in a pebble, when the 
brook has become a river, and you see a few circles, 
widening, and widening, and widening, until they are 
lost in the gentle, every-day murmur of its life ! 

You draw your hat over your eyes, as you walk 
toward the familiar door ; the yard is silent ; the night 
is falling gloomily ; a few katydids are crying in the 
trees. The mother's window, where — at such a season 
as this, it was her custom to sit watching your play, is 
shut ; and the blinds are closed over it. The honey- 
suckle which grew over the window, and \vhich she 
loved so much, has flung out its branches carelessly ; 
and the spiders have hung their foul nets upon its 
tendrils. 

And she, who made that home so dear to your 
boyhood, — so real to your after years, — standing amid 
all the flights of your youthful ambition, and your 
paltry cares (for they seem paltry now) and your 
doubts, and anxieties and weaknesses of heart, like the 
light of your hope — burning ever there, under the 
shadow of the sycamores, — a holy beacon, by whose 
guidance you always came to a sweet haven, and to a 
refuge from all your toils, — is gone, gone forever ! 



A B 1{. O K E N II O M E . 1 Ql 

The iiitlier is there indeed ; — beloved, respected 
esteemed ; but the boyish heart, whose old hfe is now 
reviving, leans more readily, and more kindly into that 
void, where once beat the heart of a mother." 

Nelly is there ; — cherished now with all the added 
love that is stricken off from her who has left you 
forever. Nelly meets you at the door. 

" Clarence !" 

" Nelly !" 

There are no other words ; but you feel her tears, as 
the kiss of welcome is g;iven. With your hand joined 
in her's, you walk down the hall, into the old, familiar 
room ; — not with the jaunty, college step, — not ^vith 
any presumption on your dawning manhood, — oh, no, — 
nothing of this ! 

Quietly, meekly, feehng your whole heart shattered, 
and your mind feeble as a boy's, and your purposes 
nothing, and worse than nothing, — with only one 
proud feeling, you fling your arm around the form 
of that gentle sister, — the pride of a protector ; — the 
feeling — " / will care for you now, dear Nelly !" — that 
is |11. And even that, proud as it is, brings weakness. 

You sit down together upon the lounge; Nelly 
buries her face in her hands, sobbing. 

"Dear Nelly," and your arm clasps her more fondly. 

There is a cricket in the corner of the room, chirping 
very loudly. It seems as if nothing else were living — 



168 Dream-Life 

only Nelly, Clarence, and the noisy cricket. Your eye 
falls on the chair where she used to sit ; it is drawn up 
with the same care as ever, beside the fire. 

" I am so glad to see you, Clarence," says Nelly, 
recovering herself; and there is a sweet, sad smile now. 
And sitting there beside you, she tells j^ou of it all ; — 
of the day, and of the hour ; — and how she looked, — • 
and of her last prayer, and how happy she was. 
" And did she leave no message for me, Nelly ?" 
" Not to forget us, Clarence ; but you could not !" 
" Thank you, Nelly ; and was there nothing else ?" 
" Yes, Clarence ; — to meet her, one day ?" 
You only press her hand. 

Presently your father comes in : he greets you with 
far more than his usual cordiality. He keeps your hand 
a long time, looking quietly in your face, as if he were 
reading traces of some resemblance, that had never 
struck him before. 

The father is one of those calm, impassive men, who 
shows little upon the surface, and whose feelings you 
have always thought, cold. But now, there is a 
tremulousness in his tones that you never rememt)er 
obsei'ving before. He seems conscious of it himself, and 
forbears talking. He goes to his old seat, and after 
gazing at you a little while with the same steadfastness 
as at first, leans forward, and buries his face in his 
hands. 



A Broken Home. 169 

From that very moment, you feel a symj^athy, and 
a love for him, that you have never known till then. 
And in after years, when suffering or trial come over 
you, and when your thoughts fly, as to a refuge, to 
that shattered home, you will recal that stooping image 
of the father, — with his head bowed, and from time 
to time trembhng convulsively with grief, — and feel that 
there remains yet by the household fires, a heart of 
kindred love, and of kindred sorrow ! 

Nelly steals away from you gently, and stepping 
across the room, lays her hand upon his shoulder, with 
a touch, that says, as plainly as words could say it ; — 
" We are here, Father !" 

And he rouses himself, — passes his arm around her ; 
— looks in her face fondly, — draws her to him, and 
prints a kiss upon her forehead. 

" Nelly, we must love each other now, more than 
ever." 

Nelly's lips tremble, but she cannot answer ; a tear 
or two go stealing down her cheek. 

You approach them ; and your father takes your 
hand again, with a firm grasp, — looks at you thought- 
fully, — drops his eyes upon the fire, and for a moment 
there is a pause ; — •" We are quite alone, now, my 
boy!" 

^It is a Broken Home I 

8 



VI. 

Family Co .n f i d e n c e . 

GRIEF has a strange power in opening the hearts 
of those who sorrow in common. The father^ 
who has seemed to you, not so much neglectful, as 
careless of your aims, and purposes; — toward whom 
there have been in your younger years, yearnings of 
affection, which his chilliness of manner has seemed to 
repress, now grows under the sad light of the broken 
household, into a friend. The heart feels a joy, it 
cannot express, in its freedom to love and to cherish. 
There is a pleasure whoU}^ new to you, in telling him 
of your youthful projects, in hstening to his question- 
ings, in seeking his opinions, and in yielding to his 
judgment. 

It is a sad thing for the child, and quite as sad for 



Family Confidence. iVl 

the parent, when this confidence is unknown. Many 
and many a time, with a bursting heart, you have 
longed to tell him of some boyish grief, or to ask his 
guidance out of some boyish trouble ; but at the first 
sight of that calm, inflexible face, and at the first sound 
of his measured words, — your enthusiastic yearnings 
toward his love, and his counsels, have all turned back 
upon your eager, and sorrowing heart ; and you have 
gone away to hide in secret, the tears, which the lack of 
his sympathy has wrung from your soul. 

But now, over the tomb of her, for whom you weep 
in common, there is a new light bi-eaking ; and your 
only fear is, lest you weary him with what may seem a 
barren show of your confidence. 

Nelly, too, is nearer now than ever ; and with her, 
you have no fears of your extravagance ; you listen 
delightfully there, by the evening flame, to all that she 
tells you of the neighbors of your boyhood. You 
shudder somewhat at her genial praises of the blue- 
eyed Madge ; — a shudder that you can hardly account 
for, and which you do not seek to explain. It may be, 
that there is a clinging and tender memory yet — 
wakened by the home atmosphere — of the divided 
sixpence. 

Of your quondam friend Frank, the pleasant recol- 
lection of whom revives again under the old roof-tree, 
she tells you very little ; and that little in a hesitating, 



1Y2 1.) RE A M-Ll FE. 

and inclifFei-ent way that utterly surprises yon. Can it 
be, yon think, that there has been some cause of 
nnkindness ? 

Clarence is still very young ! 

The lire glows warmly upon the accustomed hearth- 
stone ; and — save that vacant place, never to be filled 
.;,gain — a home cheer reigns even in this time of your 
mom-ning. The spirit of the lost parent seems to linger 
over the remnant of the household ; and the Bible 
upon its stand — the book she loved so well — the book 
so sadly forgotten, — seems still to open on you its 
promises, in her sweet tones ; and to call you, as it 
were, with her angel voice, to the land that she 
inherits. 

And when late night has come, and the household 
is quiet, you call up in the darkness of your chamber, 
that other night of grief, which followed upon the 
death of Charhe. That was the boy's vision of death ; 
and this is the youthful vision. Yet essentially, there is 
but httle difference. Death levels the capacities of the 
living, as it levels the strength of its victims. It is as 
grand to the man, as to the boy : its teachings are as 
deep for age, as for infancy. 

You may learn its mannei", and estimate its 
approaches ; but when it comes, it comes always with 
the same awful front that it wore to your boyhood. 
"Reason and Revelation may point to rich issues that 



Family Confidence. 173 

uiifold from its very dai-kness ; yet all these are no 
more to your bodily sense, and no more to your 
enlightened hope, than tliose foreshadowings of peace, 
which rest hke a halo, on the spirit of the child, as he 
prays in guileless tones, — Our Father, who aki in 
Heaven ! 

It is a holy, and a placid grief that comes over you ; 
— not crushing, but bringing to life from the grave 
of boyhood, all its better and nobler instincts. In their 
light, your wild plans of youth look sadly misshapen ; 
and in the impulse of the hour you abandon them ; 
holy resolutions beam again upon your soul like 
sunlight; your purposes seem bathed in goodness. 
Thei'e is an effervescence of the spirit, that carries away 
all foul matter, and leaves you in a state of calm, that 
seems kindred to the land and to the life, whither the 
sainted mother has gone. 

This calm brings a smile in the middle of tears, 
and an inward looking, and leaning toward that 
Eternal Power which governs and guides us ; — with 
that smile and that leaning, sleep comes like an 
angehc ministei-, and fondles your wearied frame, and 
thought, into that repose which is the mirror of the 
Destroyer. 

Poor Clarence, he is like the rest of the world, 

— whose goodness lies chiefly in the occasional throbs 



174 Dr E A M-Ll F E . 

of a better nature, which soon subside, and leave them 
upon the old level of desire* 

As you lie between waking and sleeping, you have a 
fancy of a sound at your door ; — it seems to open 
softly ; and the tall figure of your father wrapped in his 
dressing-gown stands over you, and gazes — as he gazed 
at you before; — his look is very mournful; and he 
murmurs your mother's name ; and — sighs ; and — looks 
again ; and passes out. 

At morning, you cannot tell if it was real, or a 
dream. Those higher resolves too, which grief, and 
the night made, seem very vague and shadowy. Life 
with its ambitious, and cankerous desires wakes again. 
You do not feel them at first ; the subjugation of holy 
thoughts, and of reaches toward the Infinite, leave 
their traces on you, and perhaps bewilder you into 
a half consciousness of strength. But at the first touch 
of the grosser elements about you ; — on your very first 
entrance upon those duties which quicken pride or 
shame, and which are pointing at you from every 
quarter,— your holy calm, your high-born purpose, — 
your spiritual cleavings pass away, like the electricity of 
August storms, drawn down by the thousand glittering 
turi-ets of a city ! 

The world is stronger than the night; and the 
bindings of sense ai*e ten-fold stronger than the most 
exquisite dv^lirium of soul. This makes you feel, or will 



Family Confidence. 175 

one day make you feel, that life, — strong life and sound 
life, — that life which lends approaches to the Infinite, 
and takes hold on Heaven, is not so much a Progress, 
as it is a Resistance ! 

There is one special confidence, which in all your 
talk about plans, and purposes, you do not give to 
your father; you reserve that for the ear of Nelly 
alone. Why happens it, that a father is almost the 
last confidant that a son makes in any matter deeply 
ajBecting the feehngs ? Is it the fear that a father may 
regard such matter as boyish ? Is it a lingei-iiig 
suspicion of your own childishness ; or of that extreme 
of affection which reduces you to childishness ? 

Why is it always, that a man of whatever age or 
condition, forbears to exhibit to those, whose respect for 
his judgment, and mental abilities he seeks only, the 
most earnest qualities of the heart, and those intenser 
susceptibihties of love, which underlie his nature, and 
which give a color, in spite of him, to the habit of his 
life ? Why is he so morbidly anxious to keep out of 
sight any extravagances of affection, when he blurts 
oflnciously to the world, his extravagances of action, and 
of thought ? Can any lover explain me this ? 

Again, why is a sister, the one of all others, to Avhom 
you first whisper the dawnings of any sti-ong emotion ; 
— as if it were a weakness, that her chai-ity alone could 
cover ? 



176 Dream -Life . 

However this may be, you have a long story for 
Nelly's ear. It is some days after your return : you 
are strolling down a quiet, wooded lane — a remembered 
place, — when you first open to her your heart. Your 
talk is of Laura Dalton. You describe her to Nelly, 
with the extravagance of a glowing hope. You 
picture those qualities that have attracted you most » 
you dwell upon her beauty, her elegant figure, her 
grace of conversation, her accompHshments. You make 
a study that feeds your passion, as you go on. You 
rise by the very glow of your speech into a frenzy 
of feeling, that she has never excited before. You are 
quite sure that you would be wretched, and miserable, 
without her. 

" Do you mean to marry her ?" says Nelly. 

It is a question that gives a swift bound to the blood 
of youth. It involves the idea of possession ; and of 
the dependance of the cherished one upon your own 
arm, and strength. But the admiration you entertain, 
seems almost too lofty for this ; Nelly's question makes 
you diffident of reply ; and you lose yom-self in a new 
story of those excellencies of speech, and of figm*e, 
which have so charmed you. 

Nelly's eye, on a sudden, becomes full of tears. 

"What is it, Nelly?" 

" Our mother ; Clarence." 

The word, and the thought dampen your ardor ; 



F A M I r. V Confidence. 177 

the sweet watclifulness, and gTiitlc kindness of that 
l^arent, for an instant, make a sad contrast with the 
showy qualities you have been naming; and the spirit 
of that motlier — called np by Nelly's words — seems to 
hang over yon, with an anxious love, that subdues all 
your pride of passion. 

But this passes ; and now, — half believing that 
Nelly's thoughts have I'un over the same ground with 
yours, — you tui'u special pleader for your fancy. You 
argue for the beauty, which you just now affirmed ; you 
do your utmost to win over Nelly to some burst of 
admiration. Yet there she sits beside you, thought- 
fully, and half sadly, playing with the frail autumn 
flowers that grow at her side. What can she be 
thinking ? You ask it by a look. 

She smiles, — takes your hand, for she will not let 
you grow angry, — 

"I was thinking-, Clarence, whether this Laura 
Dalton, would aftoi- all, make a good wife, — such an 
one as you would love always ?" 
8* 



VII. 

A Good Wife. 

THE thought of Nelly suggests new dreams, that 
are little apt to find place in the rhapsodies of a 
youthful lover. The veiy epithet of a good wife, 
mates tamely with the romantic fancies of a first 
passion. It is measui'ing the ideal by too practical a 
standard. It sweeps away all the delightful vagueness 
of a fairy dream of love, and reduces one to a dull, and 
economic estimate of actual qualities. Passion lives 
above all analysis and estimate, and arrives at its 
conclusions by intuition. 

Did Petrarch ever think if Laura would make 
a good wife ; did Oswald ever think it of Corinne ? 
Nay, did even the more practical Waverley, ever think 
it of the impa.ssioned Flora? Would it not weaken 



A Good Wife. 179 

faith in their romantic passages, if yon believed it ? 
What have such vnlgar, practical issues to do ^\^th that 
passion which suhHmates the faculties, and makes tlie 
loving dreamer to live in an ideal sphere, where nothing 
but goodness and brightness can come ? 

Nelly is to be pitied for entertaining such a thought; 
and yet Nelly is very good, and kind. Her affections 
ai-e, without doubt, all centred in the remnant of the 
shattered home : she has never known any further, and 
deeper love, — never once fancied it even 

Ah, Clarence, you are very young ! 



And yet there are some things that puzzle you in 
JSTelly. You have found, accidentally, in one of her 
treasured books, — a book that lies almost always on her 
dressing table, — a little withered flower, with its stem in 
a slip of paper ; and on the paper the initials of — your 
old friend Frank. You recall, in connection with this, 
her indisposition to talk of him on the first evening of 
your return. It seems, — you scarce know why — that 
these are the tokens of something very like a leaning of 
the heart. It does occur to you, that she too, may 
have her little casket of loves ; and you try one day, 
very adroitly, to take a look into this casket. 

You will learn, later in life, that the heart of a 

modest, gentle g-irl, is a very hard matter, for even a 
brother to probe : it is at once the most tender, and the 
most unapproachable of all fastnesses. It admits 



180 Dream -Life. 

feeling, by armies, with great trains of artillery, — but 
not a single scout. It is as calm and pure as polar 
snows ; but deep underneath, where no footsteps have 
gone, and where no eye can reach, but one, lies the 
warm, and the throbbing earth. 

Make what you will of the slight, quivenng blushes, 
and of the half-broken expressions, — more you cannot 
get. The love that a delicate-minded girl will tell, is a 
short sighted, and outside love ; but the love that she 
cherishes without voice or token, is a love that will 
mould her secret sympathies, and her deepest, fondest 
yearnings, either to a quiet world of joy, or to a world 
of placid sufferance. The true voice of her love she 
will keep back long and late, fearful ever of her most 
prized jewel, — fearful to strange sensitiveness : she will 
show kindness, but the opening of the real flood-gates 
of the heart, and the utterance of those impassioned 
yearnings, which belong to its nature, come far later. 
And fearful, thrice fearful is the shock, if these flow 
out unmet ! 

That deep, thrilhng voice bearing all the perfume of 
the womanly soul in its flow, raiely finds utterance ; and 
if uttered vainly, — if called ouL by tempting devices, 
and by a trust that is abused, — desolate indeed is the 
maiden heart, — widowed of its chastest thought ! The 
soul shrinks aftrighted within itself Like a tired bird, 
lost at sea, — fluttering around wliat seem friendly 



A Good Wife. 181 

boiiglis, it stoops at length, and finding only cold, 
slippery spars, with no bloom and no foliage — its last 
hope gone — it sinks to a wild, ocean gi-ave ! 

Nelly — and the thought brings a tear of sympathy 
to your eye — must have such a heart : it speaks in 
every shadow of her action. And this very delicacy 
seems to lend her a charm, that would make her a wife, 
to be loved and honored. 

Aye, there is something in that maidenly modesty, 
retiring from you, as you advance, — retreating timidly 
from all bold approaches, fearful and yet joyous, which 
wins upon the iron hardness of a man's nature, like a 
rising flame. To force of action and resolve, he oppc^es 
force : to strong will, he mates his own : pride hghts 
pride ; but to the gentleness of the true womanly 
character, he yields with a gush of tenderness that 
nothing else can call out. He will never be subjugated 
on his own ground of action and energy ; but let him 
be lured to that border country, over which the delicacy, 
and fondness of a womanly nature presides, and his 
energy yields, his haughty determination faints, — he is 
proud of submission ! 

And with this thought of modesty, and gentleness to 
illuminate your dream of an ideal wife, you chase the 
pleasant phantom to that shadowy home, — lying far off 
in the future, — of which she is the glory, and the 
crown. T know it is the fashion now-a-days with many, 



182 Dream-Life. 

to look for a woman's excellencies, and influence, — away 
from her home ; but I know too, that a vast many 
eager, and hopeful hearts, still cherish the behef that 
her virtues will range highest, and hve longest within 
those sacred walls. 

Where indeed, can the modest and earnest virtue of 
a woman, tell a stronger story of its worth, than upon 
the dawning habit of a child ? Where can her grace 
of character win a higher, and a riper effect, than upon 
the action of her household ? What mean those noisy 
declaimers who talk of the feeble influence, and of the 
crushed faculties of a woman ? 

What school of learning, or of moral endeavor, 
depends more on its teacher, than the home upon the 
mother ? What influence of all the world's professoi-s, 
and teachers, tells so strongly on the habit of a man's 
mind, as those gentle droppings from a mother's Hps, 
which, day by day, and hour by hour, grow into the 
enlarging stature of his soul, and live with it forever ? 
They can hardly be mothers, who aim at a broader, and 
noisier field : they have forgotten to be daughters : they 
must needs have lost the hope of being wives ! 

Be this how it may, the heart of a man, with whom 
affection is not a name, and love a mere passion of the 
hour, yearns toward the quiet of a home, as toward 
the goal of his earthly joy, and hope. And as you 
fasten there, your thought, an indulgent, yet dreamy 



A Good Wife. 183 

fancy paints the loved image that is to adorn it, and to 
make it sacred. 

She is there to bid you — God speed ! — and an 

adieu, that hangs hke music on your ear, as you go out 
to the every day labor of hfe. At evening, she is there 
to greet you, as you come back wearied with a day's 
toil ; and her look so full of gladness, cheats you of 
your fatigue ; and she steals her arm around you, with 
a soul of welcome, that beams like sunshine on her brow 
and that fills your eye with tears of a twin gratitude — 
to her, and Heaven ! 

She is not unmindful of those old-fashioned virtues 
of cleanliness, and of order, which give an air of quiet, 
and which secure content. Your wants are all antici- 
pated ; the fire is burning brightly ; the clean hearth 
flashes under the joyous blaze ; the old elbow chair is 
in its place. Your very unworthiness of all this haunts 
you like an accusing spirit, and yet penetrates your 
heart with a new devotion, toward the loved one who is 
thus watchful of your comfort. 

She is gentle ; — keeping your love, as she has- won it, 
by a thousand nameless and modest virtues, which 
radiate from her whole life and action. She steals upon 
your affections like a summer wind breathing softly 
over sleeping valleys. She gains a mastery over your 
sterner nature, by very contrast ; and wins you unwit- 
tingly to her lightest wish. And yet her wishes are 



184 Dream -Life. 

guided by that delicate tact, wliich avoids conflict with 
your manly pride ; she subdues, by seeming to yield. 
By a single soft word of appeal, she robs your vexation 
of its anger ; and with a slight touch of that fair hand, 
and one pleading look of that earnest eye, she disarms 
your sternest pride. 

She is kind ; — shedding her kindness, as Heaven sheds 
dew. AVho indeed could doubt it ? — least of all, you, 
who are living on her kindness, day by day, as flowers 
hve on hght ? There is none of that officious parade, 
which blunts the point of benevolence : but it tempers 
every action with a blessing. If trouble has come upon 
you, she knows that her voice beguihng you into 
cheerfulness, will lay your fears ; and as she draws her 
chair beside you, she knows that the tender and 
confiding way, with which she takes your hand, and 
looks up into your earnest face, will drive away from 
your annoyance all its weight. As she lingers, leading 
off your thought with pleasant words, she knows well 
that she is redeeming you from care, and soothing you 
to that sweet calm, which such home, and such wife 
can alone bestow. And in sickness, — sickness that you 
almost covet for the sympathy it brings, — that hand of 
hers resting on your fevered forehead, or those fingers 
playing with the scattered locks, are more full of kind- 
ness than the loudest vaunt of friends; and when 
your failing strength will permit no more, you grasp 



A G o o D W I p E . 185 

that cherislied hand, — with a fullness of joy, of 
thankfulness, and of love, which your tears only can 
tell. 

She is good ; — her hoj-)es live, where the angels hve. 
Her kindness and gentleness are sweetly tempered with 
that meekness and forbearance which are born of 
Faith. Trust comes into her heart, as rivers come to 
the sea. And in the dark hours of doubt and fore- 
boding, you rest fondly upon her buoyant Faith, as the 
treasure of your common life; and in your holier 
musings, you look to that frail hand, and that gentle 
spirit, to lead you away from the vanities of worldly 
ambition, to the fullness of that joy, which the good 
inherit. 

^Is Laura Dalton; such an one ? 



VIII. 

A B R OK EN Hope. 

YOUTHFUL passion is a giant. It overleaps 
all the dreams, and all the resolves of our 
better and quieter nature ; and drives madly toward 
some wild issue, that lives only in its frenzy. How 
little account does passion take of goodness ! It is not 
within the cycle of its revolution : . it is below : it is 
tamer : it is older : it wears no wings. 

And your proud heart flashing back to the memory 
of that sparkling eye, which lighted your hope — full-fed 
upon the vanities of cloister learning, drives your soberer 
visions to the wind. As you recal those tones, so full 
of brilhancy and pride, the quiet virtues fade, like the 
soft haze upon a spring landscape, driven westward by 
a swift, sea-born storm. The pulse bounds : the eyes 



A Broken Hope. 187 

flash : the heart trembles with its sharp springs. Hope 
dilates, Hke the eye, — fed with swift blood, leaping to 
the brain. 

Again the image of Miss Dalton, so fine, so noble, so 
womanly, fills, and bounds the Future. The lingering 
tears of grief drop away from your eye, as the lingering 
loves of boyhood drop from your scalding passion, or 
drift into clouds of vapor. 

You listen to the calm, thoughtful advice of the 
father, with a deep consciousness of something stronger 
tkan his counsels, seething in your bosom. The words 
of caution, of instruction, of guidance, fall upon your 
heated imagination, like the night-dews upon the crater 
of an Etna. They are beneficent, and healthful for the 
straggling herbage upon the surfiice of the mountain ; 
but they do not reach, or temper the inner fires, that 
are rolling their billows of flame, beneath ! 

You drop hints from time to time to those with 
whom you are most familiar, of some prospective 
change of condition. There is a new and cheerful 
interest in the building plans of your neighbors : — a 
new, and cheeiful study of the principles of domestic 
architecture ;— in which, very elegant boudoirs, adorned 
with harps, hold prominent place; and libraries with 
gilt-bound books, very rich in lyrical, and dramatic 
poetry ; — fine views from bay windows ; — graceful pots 
of flowers ; — sleek looking Italian grey-hounds ;— 



188 Dream-Life. 

cheerful sunlight ; — musical goldfinches chattering on 
the wall ; — superb pictures of Princesses in peasant 
dresses ; — soft Axminster carpets ; — easy-acting bell- 
pulls ; — gigantic candelabras ; — porcelain vases of classic 
shape ; — neat waiters in white aprons ; — luxurious 
lounges ; and, to crown them all with the very height 
of your pride, — the elegant Laura, the mistress, and the 
guardian of your soul — moving amid the scene, like a 
new Duchess of VaUiere ! 

You catch chance sights here and there, of the 
blue-eyed Madge : you see her, in her mother's house- 
hold, the earnest, and devoted daughter, — gliding 
gracefully about her mother's cottage, the very type of 
gentlen^s, and of duty. Yet withal, tliere are sparks 
of spirit in her, that pique your pride, — lofty as it is. 
You offer flowers, which she accepts with a kind 
smile ; — not of coquetry — ^but of simplest thankfulness. 
She is not the girl to gratify your vanity with any 
half-show of tenderness. And if there lived ever in 
her heart an old girlish liking for the school-boy 
Clarence, it is all gone before the romantic lover of the 
elegant Laura ; or at most, it lies in some obscure 
corner of her soul, never to be brought to light. 

You enter upon the new pursuits, which your father 
has advised, with a lofty consciousness, — not only of the 
strength of your mind, but of your heart. You reheve 
your opening professional study, with long letters to 



A Broken Hope. 189 

Miss Dalton, full of Shakspearean compliments, and 
touched off with very dainty elaboration. And you 
receive pleasant, gossipping notes in answer, — full of 
quotations, but meaning very little. 

Youth is in a grand flush, like the hot days of 
ending summer ; and pleasant dreams thrall your s])irit, 
hke the smoky atmosphere tha<^ bathes the landscape of 
an August day. Hope rides higii in the Heavens, as 
when the summer sun mounts nearest to the zenith. 
Youth feels the fullness of maturity, before the second 
season of life is ended : yet is it a vain maturity, and 
all the glow is deceitful. Those fruits that ripen in 
summer do not last. They are sweet ; they are 
glowing with gold ; but they melt with a luscious 
sweetness upon the lip. They do not give that 
strength, and nutriment, which will bear a man bravely 
through the coming chills of winter. 

The last scene of summer changes now to the 
cobwebbed ceihng of an attorney's office. Books of 
law, scattered ingloriously at your elbow, speak dully to 
the flush of your vanities. You are seated at your side 
desk, where you have wrought at those heavy, mechanic 
labors of drafting, which go before a knowledge of 
your craft. 

A letter is by you, which you regard with strange 
feelings : it is yet unopened. It comes from Laura. It 



190 DrE AM-L IFE. 

is in reply to one which has cost you very much of 
exquisite elaboration. You have made your avowal 
of feeling, as much hke a poem, as your education 
would admit. Indeed, it was a pretty letter, — pro- 
mising, not so much the trustful love of an earnest, and 
devoted heart, — as the fervor of a passion which 
consumed you, and glowed like a furnace through the 
lines of your letter. It was a confession, in which your 
vanity of intellect had taken very entertaining part ; and 
in which, your judgment was too cool to appear at all. 

She must needs break out into raptures at such a 
letter ; and her own, will doubtless be tempered with 
even greater passion. 

It is well to shift your chair somewhat, so that 
the clerks of the office may not see your emotion as 
you read. It would be silly to manifest your exuber- 
ance in a dismal, dark office of your instructing attorney. 
One sighs rather for woods, and brooks, and sunshine, 
in whose company, the hopes of youth stretch into 
fulfillment. 

We will look only at a closing passage : — 

"My friend Clarence will I trust believe me, 



when I say that his letter was a surprise to me. To 
say that it was very grateful, would be what my 
womanly vanity could not fail to claim. I only wish 
that I was equal to the flattering portrait which he has 



A Broken Hope. 191 

drawn. I even half fancy that he is joking me, and can 
hardly beheve that my matronly air should have quite 
won his youthful heart. At least I shall try not to 
beheve it ; and when I welcome him one day, the husband 
of some fairy, who is worthy of his love, we will smile 
together at the old lady, who once played the Circe 
to his senses. Seriously, my friend Clarence, I know 
your impulse of heart has carried you away : and that 
in a year's time, you will smile with me, at your old 
penchant for one so much your senior, and so ill-suited 
to your yeare, as your true friend, Laura." 

Mao-nificent Miss Dalton ! 



Read it again. Stick your knife in the desk : — tut ! 
— you vnll break the blade ! Fold up the letter care- 
fully, and toss it upon your pile of papers. Open 
Chitty again ; — pleasant reading is Chitty ! Lean upon 
your hand — your two hands ; — so that no one will 
catch sight of your face. Chitty is very interesting ; — 
how sparkhng and imaginative ! — what a depth and 
flow of passion in Chitty ! 

The office is a capital place — so quiet and sunny. 
Law is a delightful study — so captivating, and such 
stores of romance ! And then those ti-ips to the Hall 
offer such rehef and variety; — especially just now. 
It would be well not to betray your eagerness to go. 
You can brush your hat a round or two, and take a 



192 Dti K A M -L IFE. 

peep into the broken Lit of looking-glass, over the 
wash-stand. 

You lengthen your walk, as you sometimes do, by a 
stroll upon the Battery — though i-arely, upon such 
a blustering November day. You put your hands 
in your pockets, and look out upon the tossing sea. 

It is a fine sight — very fine. There are few finer 
bays in the world than New York bay ; either to look 
at, or — for that matter — to sleep in. The ships ride 
up thickly, dashing about the cold spray delightfully ; 
the little cutters gleam in the November sunshine, like 
white flowers shivering in the wind. 

The sky is rich — all mottled with cold, gray streaks 
of cloud. The old apple-women, with their noses frost- 
bitten, look cheerful, and blue. The ragged immi- 
grants in short-trowsers, and bell-crowned hats, stalk 
about with a very happy expression, and very short 
stemmed pipes ; their yellow-haired babies look com- 
fortably red, and glowing. And the trees with their 
scant, pinched foliage, have a charming, summer-like 
effect ! 

Amid it all, the thoughts of the boudoir, and 
harpsichord, and gold-finches, and Axminster carpets, 
and sunshine, and Laura, are so very — very pleasant ! 
How delighted you would be to see her married to the 
stout man in the red cravat, who gave her bouquets, 
and strolled with her on the deck of the steamer upon 



A Broken Hope. 193 

the St. Lawrence ! What a jaunty, self-satisfied air he 
wore ; and with what considerate forbearance he treated 
you — calling you once or twice — Master Clarence ! 
It never occui-red to you before, how much you must 
be indebted to that pleasant, stout man. 

You try sadly to be cheerful ; you smile oddly ; 
your pride comes strongly to your help, but yet helps 
you very little. It is not so much, a broken heart, that 
you have to mourn over, as a broken dream. You 
seem to see in a hundred ways that had never occurred 
to you before, the marks of her superior age. Above 
all, it is manifest in the cool, and unimpassioned tone 
of her letter. Yet, how kindly, withal ! It would be 
a relief to be angry. 

New visions come to you, wakened by the broken 
fancy which has just now eluded your grasp. You 
will make yourself, if not old, — at least, gifted with the 
force and dignity of age. You will be a man ; and 
build no more castles, until you can people them with 
men ! In an excess of pride, you even take umbrage 
at the sex ; they can have little appreciation of that 
engrossing tenderness, of which you feel yom'self to be 
capable. Love shall henceforth be dead, and you 
will live boldly without it. 

^Just so, when some dark, eastern cloud-bank 

shrouds for a morning, the sun of later August, we say 
in our shivering pride — the winter is come early I 



194 Dream-Life. 

But God manages tlie seasons better than we; and 
in a day, or an hour j^erhaps, the cloud will pass, and 
the heavens glow again upon our ungrateful heads. 

Well, it is even so, that the passionate dreams 
of youth break up, and withei". Vanity becomes 
tempered with wholesome pride ; and passion yields to 
the riper judgment of manhood ; — even as the August 
heate pass on, and over, into the genial glow of a 
September sun. There is a strong growth in the 
struggles against mortified pride ; and then only, does 
the youth get an ennobhng consciousness of that 
manhood which is dawning in him, when he has fairly 
surmounted those puny vexations, which a wounded 
vanity creates. 

Now, your heart is driven home ; — and that cherished 
place, where, so little while ago, you wore your vanities 
with an air, that mocked even your grief, and that 
subdued your better nature, seems to stretch toward 
you, over long miles of distance, — its wings of love; 
and to welcome back to the sister's, and the father's 
heart — not the self-sufficient, and vaunting youth, — 
but the brother and son, — the school-boy, Clarence. 
Like a thirsty child, you stray in thought, to that 
fountain of cheer ; and live again, — your vanity crushed, 
your wild hope broken, — in the warm, and natural 
affections of the boyish home. 



A Broken Hope. 195 

Clouds weave the Summer into the season of 

Autumn : and Youth rises from dashed hope.s, into 
the stature of a Man. 



9[|)c Dreams of illanljoob. 



DREAMS OF MANHOOD. 



Autumn. 

r f~^IIERE are those who shudder at the approach 
JL of Autumn ; and who feel a Hght grief steahng 
over their spirits, hke an October haze, as the evening 
shadows slant sooner, and longer, over the face of an 
ending August day. 

But is not Autumn the Manhood of the year ? Is 
it not the ripest of the seasons ? Do not proud flowers 
blossom ; — the golden rod, the orchis, the dahlia, 
and the bloody cardinal of the swamp-lands ? 

The fruits too are golden, hanging heavy from the 
tasked trees. The fields of maize show weeping 
spindles, and broad rusthng leaves, and ears, half 
glowing with the crowded corn ; the September wind 
whistles over their thick-set ranks, with whispei-s of 



200 Dream-Life. 

plenty. The staggering stalks of the buck- wheat, grow 
red with ripeness ; and tip their tops with clustering, 
tri-cornered kernels. 

The cattle loosed from the summer's yoke, grow 
strong upon the meadows, new starting from the 
scythe. The lambs of April, rounded into fullness 
of limb, and gaining day by day their woolly cloak, 
bite at the nodding clover-heads ; or, with their noses 
to the ground, they stand in solemn, circular conclave, 
under the pasture oaks, while the noon sun beats with 
the Ungering passion of July. 

The Bob-o'-Lincolns have come back from their 
Southern rambles among the rice, all speckled with 
gray ; and — singing no longer as they did in Spring, — 
they quietly feed upon the ripened reeds, that straggle 
along the borders of the walls. The larks, with theii 
black and yellow breast-plates, and hfted heads, stand 
tall upon the close-mown meadow ; and at your 
first motion of approach, spring up, and soar away, 
and light again ; and with their lifted heads, renew 
the watch. The quails, in half-grown coveys, saunter 
hidden, through the underbrush that skirts the wood ; 
and only when you are close upon them, whir away, 
and drop scattered under the coverts of the forest. 

The robins, long ago deserting the garden neighbor- 
hood, feed at eventide, in flocks, upon the bloody 
berries of the sumac ; and the soft-eyed pigeons 



Autumn. 201 

dispute possession of the feast. The squirrels chatter 
at sun-rise, and gnaw off the full-grown burs of the 
chesnuts. The lazy black-birds skip after the loitering 
cow, watchful of the crickets, that her slow steps start 
to danger. The crows, in companies, caw aloft ; 
and hang high over the carcase of some slaughtered 
sheep, lying ragged upon the hills. 

The ash trees grow crimson in color, and lose their 
summer life in great gouts of blood. The birches touch 
their frail spray with yellow ; the chesnuts drop down 
their leaves in brown, twirling showers. The beeches 
crimped with the frost, guard their foliage, until eacli 
leaf whistles white, in the November gales. The 
bitter-sweet hangs its bare, and leaf-less tendrils from 
rock to tree, and sways with the weight of its brazen 
berries. The sturdy oaks, unyielding to the winds, 
and to the frosts, struggle long against the approaches 
of the winter ; and in their struggles, wear faces of 
orange, of scarlet, of crimson, and of brown; and 
finally, yielding to swift winds, — as youth's pride yields 
to manly duty, — strew the ground with the scattered 
glories of their summer strength ; and warm, and feed 
the earth, with the debris of their leafy honors. 

The maple, in the low-lands, turns suddenly its 

silvery greenness into orange scarlet ; and in the 

coming chilliness of the Autumn eventide, seems to 

catch the glories of the sunset ; and to wear them — 

9* 



202 D R E A M - L I F E. 

as a sign of God's old promise in Egypt, — like a pillar 
of cloud, by day, — and of fire, by night. 

And when all these are done ; — and in the paved, 
and noisy aisles of the city, the ailanthns, with all its 
greenness gone, — lifts up its skeleton fingers to the 
God of Autumn and of storms, — the dog- wood still 
guards its crown; and the branches which stretched 
their white canvass in April, now bear up a spire of 
bloody tongues, that he against the leafless woods, hke 
a tree on fire ! 

Autumn brings to the home, the cheerful glow 
of 'first fires.' It withdraws the thoughts from the 
wide and joyous landscape of summer, and fixes them 
upon those objects which bloom, and rejoice within 
the household. The old hearth that has rioted the 
summer through with boughs and blossoms, gives 
up its withered tenantry. The fire-dogs gleam kindly 
upon the evening hours ; and the blaze wakens those 
sweet hopes, and prayers, which cluster around the 
fireside of home. 

The wanton and the riot of the season gone, are 
softened in memory, and supply joys to the season 
to come; — ^just ns youth's audacity and pride, give 
a glow to the recollections of our manhood. 

At mid-day, the air is mild and soft ; a warm, blue 
smoke lies in the mountain gaps ; the tracery of distant 
woods upon the upland, hangs in the haze, with 



Autumn. 203 

a dreamy gorgeousness of coloring. The river runs 
low with August drought ; and frets upon the pebbly 
bottom, with a soft, low murmur, — as of joyousness 
gone by. The hemlocks of the river bank, rise in 
tapering sheens, and tell tales of Spring. 

As the sun sinks, doubling his disc in the October 
smoke, the low, south wind creeps over the withered 
tree-tops, and drips the leaves upon the land. The 
windows that were wide open at noon, are closed ; 
and a bright blaze — to drive off the Eastern dampness, 
that promises a storm, — flashes lightly, and kindly, 
over the book-shelves and busts, upon my wall. 

As the sun sinks lower, and lower, his red beams 
die in a sea of great, gray clouds. Slowly, and quietly, 
they creep up over the night-sky. Venus is shrouded. 
The Western stars blink faintly, — then fade in the 
mounting vapors. The vane points East of South. 
The constellations in the Zenith, struggle to be seen ; — 
but presently give over, and hide their shining. 

By late lamp-light, the sky is all gi-ay and dark : the 
vane has turned two points nearer east. The clouds 
spit fine rain-drops, that you only feel, with your face 
turned to the heavens. But soon, they grow thicker 

and heavier ; and, as I sit, watching the blaze, and 

dreaming they pattei* thick and fast under the 

driving wind, upon the window, — like the swift tread 
of an armv of Men ! 



I. 

Pride op Manliness. 

AND has manhood no dreams ? Does the soul 
wither at that Rubicon, which Hes between the 
Galhc country of youth, and the Rome of manhness ? 
Does not fancy still love to cheat the heart, and weave 
gorgeous tissues to hang upon that horizon, which hes 
along the years that are to come ? Is happiness so 
exhausted, that no new forms of it he in the mines of 
imagination, for busy hopes to di*ag up to-day ? 

Where then would live the motives to an upward 
looking of the eye, and of the soul ; — where, the 
beckonings that bid us ever — onward ? 

But these later dreams, are not the dreams of fond 
boyhood, whose eye sees rarely below the surface of 
things ; nor yet the delicious hopes of sparkling- 



Pride of Manliness. 205 

blooded youth : they are dreams of sober trustfulness, 
of pi-actical results, of hard-wrought world-success, and 
— may be — of Love and of Joy. 

Ambitious forays do not rest, where they rested 
once : hitherto, the balance of youth has given you, in 
all that you have dreamed of accomplishment, — a 
strong vantage against age : hitherto, in all your 
estimates, you have been able to multiply them by that 
access of thought, and of strength, which manhood 
would bring to you. Now, this is forever ended. 

There is a great meaning in that word — manhood. 
It covers all human growth. It supposes no extensions, 
or increase ; it is integral, fixed, perfect — the whole. 
There is no getting beyond manhood ; it is much 
to hve up to it ; but once reached, you are all that 
a man was made to be, in this world. 

It is a strong thought — that a man is perfected, 
so far as strength goes ; — that he will never be al)ler 
to do his work, than under the very sun which is now 
shining on him. There is a seriousness, that few call 
to mind, in the reflection, that whatever you do in this 
age of manhood, is an unalterable type of youi* whole 
bigness. You may qualify pai-ticulai-s of your char- 
acter, by refinements, by special studies, and practice ; 
but, — once a man, — and there is no more manliness to 
be lived for ! 

This thought kindles your soul to new, and swifter 



206 Dream-Life. 

dreams of ambition than belonged to youth. They 
were toys ; these are weapons. They were fancies ; 
these are motives. The soul begins to struggle with 
the dust, the sloth, the circumstance, that beleaguer 
humanity, and to stagger into the van of action. 

Perception, whose limits lay along a narrow horizon, 
now tops that horizon, and spreads, and reaches toward 
the heaven of the Infinite. The mind feels its birth, 
and struggles toward the great birth-master. The 
heart glows: its humanities even, yield and crimple 
under the fierce heat of mental pride. Vows leap 
upward, and pile rampart upon rampart, to scale 
all the degrees of human power. 

Are there not times in every man's life when there 
flashes on him a feehng — nay, more, an absolute 
conviction, — that this soul is but a spark belonging 
to some upper fire ; and that by as much as we 
draw near by effort, by resolve, by intensity of 
endeavor, to that upper fire, — by so much, we draw 
nearer to our home, and mate ourselves with angels ? 
Is there not a ringing desire in many minds to seize 
hold of what floats above us in the universe of 
thought, and drag down what shreds we can, to 
scatter to the world? Is it not belonging to great- 
ness, to catch lightning, from the ])lains where lightning 
lives, and curb it, for the handling of men ? 

Resoivc is what makes a man manliest;— not puny 



Pride of Manliness. 207 

resolve, not crude determination, not errant purpose, — 
but that strong, and indefatigable will, which treads 
down difficulties and danger, as a boy treads down 
the heaving frost-lands of winter ; — which kindles liis 
eye and brain, with a proud pulse-beat toward the 
unattainable. Will makes men giants. It made 
Napoleon an Emperor of kings, — Bacon a fathomer 
of nature, — Byron a tutor of passion, and the martyrs, 
masters of Death ! 

In this age of manhood, you look back upon the 
dreams of the years that are past ; they glide to the 
vision in pompous procession ; they seem bloated with 
infancy. They are without sinew or bone. They 
do not bear the hard touches of the man's hand. 

It is not long, to be sure, since the summer of life 
ended with that broken hope; but the few yeai-s that 
lie between have given long steps upward. The little 
grief that threw its shadow, and the broken vision 
that deluded you, have made the passing years long, 
in such feeling as ripens manhood. Nothing lays 
the brown of autumn upon the green of summer, so 
quick as storms. 

There have been changes too in the home scenes; 
these graft age upon a man. Nelly — your sweet Nelly 
of childhood, your affectionate sister of youth, has 
grown out of the old brotherly companionship into the 
new dignity of a household. 



208 Dream-Life. 

The fire tiames and flashes upon the accustomed 
hearth. The father's chair is there in the wonted 
corner; he himself — we must call him the old man 
now, though his head shows few white honors — wears 
a calmness and a trust that light the faihng eye. 
Nelly is not away ; Nelly is a wife ; and the husband 
yonder, as you may have dreamed, — your old friend 
Frank. 

Her eye is joyous ; her kindness to you is unabated ; 
her care for you is quicker and wiser. But yet the 
old unity of the household seems broken ; nor can all 
her winning attentions bring back the feeling which 
lived in Spring, under the garret roof. 

The isolation, the unity, the integrity of manhood, 
make a strong prop for the mind ; but a weak one for the 
heart. Dignity can but poorly fill up that chasm of 
the soul, which the home affections once occupied. 
Life's duties, and honors press hard upon the bosom, 
that once throbbed at a mother's tones, and that 
bounded in a mother's smiles. 

In such home, the strength you boast of, seems a 
weakness ; manhood leans into childish memories, and 
melts — as Autumn frosts yield to a soft, south wind, 
coming from a Tropic spring. You feel in a desert 
where you once felt at home — in a bounded landscape, 
— that was once — the world ! 

The tall sycamores have dwindled to paltry trees : 



Pride of Manliness. 209 

the hills that were so large, and lay at such grand 
distance to the eye of childhood, are now near by, and 
have fallen away to mere rolling waves of upland. 
The garden fence that was so gigantic, is now only 
a simple paling : its gate that was such a cumbrous 
affair — reminding you of Gaza — you might easily lift 
from its hinges. The lofty dovecote, which seemed to 
rise hke a monument of art, before your boyish vision, 
is now only a flimsy box upon a tall spar of hemlock. 

The garret even, with its lofty beams, its dark stains, 
and its obscure corners, where the white hats, and coats 
hung ghost-like, is but a low loft, darkened by age, — 
hung over with cobwebs, dimly lighted with foul 
windows, — its romping Charlie, — its glee, — its swing, — 
its joy, — its mystery, all gone forever. 

The old gaUipots, and retorts are not anywhere to be 
seen in the second story window of the brick school. 
Dr. Bidlow is no more ! The trees that seemed so 
large, the gymnastic feats that were so extraordinary, 
the boy that made a snapper of his handkerchief, — 
have all lost their greatness, and their dread. Even 
the springy usher, who dressed his hair with the ferule, 
has become the middle-aged father of five curly-headed 
boys, and h^is entered upon what once seemed the 
gigantic commerce — of ' stationery and account books.' 

The marvellous labyrinth of closets, at the old 
mansion where you once paid a visit — in a coach — is 



210 Dream-Life. 

all dissipated. They have turned out to be the merest 
cupboards in the wall. Nat, who had travelled, and 
seen London, is by no means so surprising a fellow to 
your manhood, as he was to the boy. He has grown 
spare, and wears spectacles. He is not so famous as he 
was. You would hardly think of consulting him now 
about your marriage ; or even about the price of goats 
upon London bridge. 

As for Jenny — your first, fond flame ! — lively, 
romantic, black-eyed Jenny, — the reader of Thaddeus 
of Warsaw, — who sighed and wore blue ribbons on her 
bonnet, — who wrote love notes, — who talked so tenderly 
of broken hearts, — who used a glass seal with a cupid 
and a dart, — dear Jenny, — she is now the plump, and 
thriving wife of the apothecary of the town ! She 
sweeps out every morning at seven, the little entry of 
the apothecary's house : she buys a ' joint ' twice a 
week from the butcher, and is particular to have the 
' knuckle ' thrown in, for soups : she wears a sky blue 
cahco gown, and dresses her hair in three httle flat 
quirls on either side of her head — each one pierced 
through with a two-pronged hair-pin. 

She does not read Thaddeus of Warsaw, now. 



n. 

Man of the World. 

FEW i^ersons live through the first periods of 
manhood, without strong temptations to be 
counted — ' men of the world.' The idea, looms grandly 
among those vanities, that hedge a man's approach to 
maturity. 

Clarence is in good training for the acceptance of 
this idea. The broken hope which clouded his closing 
youth, shoots over its influence upon the dawn of 
manhood. Mortified pride had taught — as it always 
teaches — not caution only, but doubt, distrust, indiffer- 
ence. A new pride grows up on the ruins of the old, 
weak, and vain pride of youth. Then, it was a piide 
of learning, or of affection ; now, it is a pride of indif- 
ference. Then, the world proved bleak, and cold, as 



212 Dream-Life. 

contrasted with his shining dreams ; and now, he 
accepts the proof, and wins fi'om it wliat he can. 

The man of the vforld puts on the method, and 
measure of the world : he studies its humors. He 
gives up the boyish notion of a sincerity among men, 
hke that of youth : he hves, to seem. He conquei-s 
such annoyances as the world may thrust upon him, in 
the shape of grief, or losses, like a practised athlete of 
the ring. He studies moral sparring. 

With somewhat of this strange vanity growing on 
you, you do not suffer the heart to wake into life, except 
in such fanciful dreams as tempt you back to the sunny 
slopes of childhood. 

In this mood, you fall in with Dalton, who has just 
returned from a year passed in the French Capital. 
There is an easy suavity, and graceful indifference in his 
manner that chimes admirably with your humor. He 
is gracious, without needing to be kind. He is a friend, 
without any challenge oi* proffer of sincerity. He is 
just one of those adepts in world tactics, which match 
him with all men, but which link him to none. He has 
made it his art to be desired, and admired, but rarely to 
be trusted. You could not have a better teacher ! 

Under such instruction, you become disgusted for the 
time, with any effort, or pulse of affection, which does 
not have immediate and practical bearing upon that 
success in life, by w4iich you measure your hopes. The 



Man of the World. 213 

dreams of love, of romantic adventure, of placid joy, 
have all gone out, with^the fantastic images, to which 
your passionate youth had joined them. The world is 
now regarded as a tournament, where the gladiator- 
ship of hfe is to be exhibited at your best endeavor. 
Its honors and joy, lie in a bi'illiant pennant, and a 
plaudit. 

Dalton is learned in those arts which make of action 
— not a duty, but a conquest ; and sense of duty has 
expired in you, with those romantic hopes, to which 
you bound it, — not as much through sympathy, as 
ignorance. It is a cold, and a bitterly selfish work that 
hes before you, — to be covered over with such bori-owed 
show of smiles, as men call affability. The heart' wears 
a stout, brazen screen ; its inclinations grow to the 
habit of your ambitious projects. 

In such mood come swift dreams of wealth; — not 
of mere accumulation, but of the splendor, and parade, 
which in our western world are, alas, its chiefest attrac- 
tions. You grow observant of markets, and estimate 
per centages. You fondle some speculation in your 
thought, until it giows into a gigantic scheme of profit ; 
and if the venture prove successful, you follow the tide 
tremulously, until some sudden reverse throws 3^ou 
back upon the resources of your professional employ. 

But again, as you see this and that one wearing the 
blazonry which wealth wins, and which the man of the 



214 Dream -Life. 

world is sure to covet, — your weak soul glows again 
with the impassioned desire ; and you hunger, with 
brute ap})etite, and bestial eye — for riches. You see 
the mania around you ; and it is relieved of odium, by 
the community of error. You consult some gray old 
veteran in the war of gold, scarred with wounds, and 
crowned with honors ; and watch eagerly for the words 
and the ways, which have won him wealth. 

Your fingers tingle with mad expectancies ; your 
eyes roam — lost in estimates. Your note-book shows 
long hnes of figures. Your i-eading of the news centres 
in the stock list. Your brow grows cramped with the 
fever of anxiety. Through whole church hours, your 
dreams range over the shadowy transactions of the 
week or the month to come. 

Even with old religious habit clinging fast to your 
soul, you dream now, only of nice conformity, comfort- 
able faith, high respectabihty ; there hes very little in 
vou of that noble consciousness of Duty performed, — 
of living up to the Life that is in you, — of grasping 
boldly, and stoutly, at those chains of Love which the 
Lifinite Power has lowered to our reach. You do not 
dream of being, but of seeming. You spill the real 
essence, and clutch at the vial which has only a label 
of Truth. Great and holy thoughts of the Future, — 
shadowy, yet bold conceptions of the Infinite, float past 
you dimly, and your hold is never strong enough to 



Man of the World. 215 

grapple them to you. They fly, hke eagles, too near 
the sun ; and there lies game below, for your vulture 
beak to feed upon. 

[Great thoughts belong, only and truly, to him 
whose mind can hold them. No matter who first puts 
them in words ; if they come to a soul, and fill it, they 
belong to it ; — whether they floated on the voice of 
others, or on the wings of silence, and the night.] 

To be up v/itli the fashion of the time, — to be igno- 
rant of plain things and people, and to be knowing in 
briUiancies, is a kind of Pelhamism, that is very apt to 
overtake one in the first blush of manhood. To hold 
a fair place in the after-dinner table-talk, to meet dis- 
tinction as a familiarity, to wear salon honors with 
aplomb, to know affection so far as to wield it into 
grace of language, are all splendid achievements with a 
man of the world. Instruction is caught, without ask- 
ing it ; and no ignorance so shames, as ignorance of 
those forms, by which natural impulse is subdued to 
the tone of civihan habit. You conceal what tells of 
the man ; and cover it with what smacks of the roue. 

Perhaps, under such training, and with a slight 
memory of early mortification to point your spirit, you 
affect those gallantries of heart and action, which the 
world calls flirtation. You may study brilliancies of 
speech, to wrap tbeir not around those suscei)tible 
hearts, whose habit is too naive by natm-e, to wear the 



216 Dkkam Life. 

leaden covering of custom. You win approaches by 
artful counterfeit of earnestness ; and dash away any 
naivete of confidence, with some brave sophism of the 
world. A. doubt or a distrust, piques your pride, and 
makes attentions wear a humility that wins anew. An 
indifference piques you more, and throws into your art 
a counter indifference, — lit up by bold flashes of feel- 
ing, — sparkling with careless brilliaDcies, and crowned 
witli a triumph of neglect. 

It is curious how ingeniously a man's vanity will 

frame apologies for such action. It is pleasant to 

give pleasure ; you like to see a joyous sparkle of the 
eye, whether lit up by your presence, or by some buoy- 
ant fLiucy. It is a beguiling task to weave words into 
some soft, melodious flow, that shall keep the ear, and 
kindle the eye ; — and to strew it over with half-hidden 
praises, so deftly couched in double terms, that their, 
aroma shall only come to the heai't hours afterward ; 
and seem to be the merest accidents of truth. It is 
a hap])y art to make such subdued show of emotion, 
as seems to struggle with pride ; and to flush the eye 
with a moisture, of which you seem ashamed, and yet 
are proud. It is a pretty j)ractice, to throw an earnest- 
ness into look and gesture, that shall seem full of plead- 
ing, and yet — ask nothing ! 

And yet it is hard to admire greatly the reputation 
of that man, who builds his tiiumphs upon womanly 



Man of the World. 217 

weakness : that distinction is not over enduring, whose 
chiefest merit springs out of the delusions of a too 
trustful heart. The man who wins it, wins only a 
poor sort of womanly distinction. Without power to 
cope with men, he triumphs over the weakness of the 
other sex, only by hypocrisy. He wears none of the 
armor of Romans ; and he parleys with Punic faith. 

Yet, even now, — there is a lurking goodness 

in you, that traces its beginnings to the old garret 
home ; — there is an air in the harvest heats, that whis- 
pers of the bloom of spring. 

And over your brilliant career as man of the world, — 
however lit up by a morbid vanity, or galvanized by a 
lascivious passion, there will come at times, the con- 
sciousness of a better heart struggling beneath yom* 
cankered action, — hke the low Vesuvian fire, reeking 
vainly under rough beds of tufa, and scoriated lava. 
And as you smile in loge, or salon, with daring smiles ; 
or press with villain fondness, the hand of those lady 
votaries of the same god you serve, there will gleam 
upon you, over the waste of rolhng years, a memory 
that quickens again the nobler, and bolder instincts of 
the heart. 

Childish recollections, with their purity, and earnest- 
ness, — a sister's love, — a mother's solicitude, will flood 
your soul once more with a gushing sensibility that 
yearns for enjoyment. And the conscioiisiii ..s of some 
10 



218 Dream-Life. 

lingering nobility of affection, that can only grow great, 
in mating itself with nobility of heart, will sweep off 
your puny triumphs, your Platonic friendships, your 
dashing coquetries, — like the foul smoke of a city, be- 
fore a fresh breeze of the country autumn. 



III. 

Manly Hope. 

YOU are at home again ; — not your own home, 
that is gone; but at the home of Nelly, and 
of Frank. The city heats of summer drive you to the 
country. You ramble, with a little kindling of old 
desires and memories, over the hill sides that once 
bounded your boyish vision. Here, you netted the 
wild rabbits, as they came out at dusk, to feed ; there, 
upon that tall chesnut, you cruelly maimed your first 
captive squirrel. The old maples are eve-n now scarred 
with the rude cuts you gave them, in sappy March. 

You sit down upon some height, overlooking the 
valley where you were born; you trace the faint, 
silvery line of river; you detect by the leaning elm, 
your old bathing place upon the Satui'da}'s of Summer. 



220 Dream-Life. 

Your eye dwells upon some patches of pasture wood, 
which were famous for their nuts. Your rambling, 
and saddened vision roams over the houses ; it traces 
the famihar chimney stacks ; it searches out the low- 
lying cottages; it dwells upon the gray roof, sleeping 
yonder under the sycamores. 

Tears swell in your eye, as you gaze; you cannot 
tell whence, or why they come. Yet they are tears 
eloquent of feeling. They speak of brother children — 
of boyish glee, — of the flush of young health, — of a 
mother's devotion, — of the home affections, — of the 
vanities of hfo, — of the wasting years, of the Death 
that must shroud what friends remain, as it has 
shrouded what friends have gone, — and of that Great 
Hope, beaming on your sered manhood dimly, from 
the upper world ! 

Your wealth suffices for all the luxuries of hfe : 
there is no fear of coming want ; health beats strong 
in your veins ; you have learned to hold a place in the 
world, with a man's strength, and a man's confidence. 
And yet in the view of those sweet scenes which 
belonged to early days, when neither strength, con- 
fidence, nor wealth were yours, days never to come 
again, — a shade of melancholy broods upon your 
spirit, and covers with its veil all that fierce pride 
which your worldly wisdom has wrought. 

You visit again, v/itli Frank, the country homestead 



Manly Hope. 221 

of his grandfatbei- ; he is dead ; but the old lady still 
lives ; and blind Fanny, now drawing toward woman- 
hood, wears yet througli her darkened hfe, the same 
air of placid content, and of sweet trustfulness in 
Heaven. The boys whom you astounded with your 
stories of books are gone, building up now with steady 
industry the queen cities of our new Western land. The 
old clergyman is gone from the desk, and from under 
his sounding board ; he sleeps beneath a brown stone 
slab in the church yard. The stout deacon is dead ; 
his wig and his wickedness rest together. The tall 
chorister sings yet: but they have now a bass-viol — 
handled by a new schoolmaster, in place of his tuning 
fork ; and the years have sown feeble quavers in his 
voice. 

Once more you meet at the home of Nelly, — the 
blue eyed Madge. The sixpence is all forgotten ; you 
cannot tell where your half of it is gone. Yet she is 
beautiful — ^just budding into the full ripeness of woman- 
hood. Her eyes have a quiet, still joy, and hope 
beaming in them, like angel's looks. Her motions have 
a native grace, and freedom, that no culture can 
bestow. Her words have a gentle earnestness and 
honesty, that could never nurture guile. 

You had thought, after your gay experiences of the 
world, to meet her with a kind condescension, as an 
old friend of Nolly's. But there is that in her eye, 



222 Dream -Life. 

which forbids all thought of condescension. There is 
that in her air, which tells of a high womanly dignity, 
which can only be met on equal ground. Your pride 
is piqued. She has known — she must know your 
history ; but it does not tame her. There is no marked 
and submissive appreciation of your gifts, as a man of 
the world. 

She meets your happiest compliments with a very 
easy indifference; she receives your elegant civilities 
with a very assured brow. She neither courts your 
society, nor avoids it. She does not seek to provoke 
any special attention. And only when your old-self 
glows in some casual kindness to Nelly, does her look 
beam with a flush of sympathy. 

This look touches you. It makes you ponder on 
the noble heart that hves in Madge. It makes you 
wish it were yours. But that is gone. The fervor 
and the honesty of a glowing youth, is swallowed up 
in the flash and splendor of the world. A half-regret 
chases over you at night-fall, when solitude pierces you 
with the swift dart of gone-by memories. But at 
morning, the regret dies, in the glitter of ambitious 
purposes. 

The summer months linger ; and still you linger 
with them. Madge is often with Nelly ; and Madge 
is never less than Madge. You venture to point your 
attentions with a little more fervor ; but she meets the 



M A N L Y H O P E . 223 

fervor with no glow. She knows too well the habit 
of your life. 

Strange feehngs come over you ; — feelings like half- 
forgotten memories — musical — dreamy — doubtful. You 
have seen a hundred faces more brilliant than that 
of Madge ; you have pressed a hundred jewelled hands 
that have returned a half-pressure to yours. You do 
not exactly admire; — to love, you have forgotten; — 
you only — linger ! 

It is a soft autumn evening, and the harvest moon is 
red and round over the eastern skirt of woods. You 
are attending Madge to that little cottage home, where 
hves that gentle and doting mother, who in the midst 
of comparative poverty, cherishes that refined delicacy, 
which never comes to a child, but by inheritance. 

Madge has been passing the day with Nelly. Some- 
tliing — it may be the soft autumn air wafting toward 
you the freshness of young days, — moves you to speak, 
as you have not ventured to speak, — as your vanity 
has not allowed you to speak before. 

"You remember, Madge, (you have guarded this 
sole token of boyish intimacy) our split sixpence ?" 

" Perfectly :" it is a short word to speak, and there 
is no tremor in her tone — not the slightest. 

" You have it yet ?'' 



224 D R E A M - L I F E . 

" I dare say, I have it somewhere :" no tremor now : 
she is veiy composed. 

" That was a happy time :" very great emphasis on 
the word happy. 

" Very happy :" — no emphasis anywhere. 

" I sometimes wish I might hve it over again." 

" Yes ?" — inquiringly. 

" There are after all no pleasures in the world like 
those." 

" No ?" — inquiringly again. 

You thought you had learned to have language at 
command : you never thought, after so many years 
schooling of the world, that your pliant tongue would 
play you truant. Yet now, — you are silent. 

The moon steals silvery into the light flakes of 
cloud, and the air is soft as May. The cottage is in 
sight. Again you risk utterance : — 

" You must live very happily here." 

" I have very kind friends :" — the very, is emphasized. 

" I am sui-e Nelly loves you veiy much." 

" Oh, I believe it !" — with great earnestness. 

You are at the cottage door : — 

" Good night, Maggie," — very feelingly. 

" Good night, Clarence," — very kindly ; and she 
draws her hand coyly, and half tremulously, from your 
somewhat fevered grasp. 

You stroll away dreamily, — watching the moon, — 



Manly IIo^^e. 225 

runnrng over your fragmentary life ; — half moody, — 
half pleased, — half hopeful. 

You come back stealthily, and with a heart throbbing 
with a certain wild sense of shame, to watch the light 
gleaming in the cottage. You linger in the shadows 
of the trees, until you catch a ghmpse of her figure, 
ghding past the window. You bear the image home 
with you. You are silent on your return. You retire 
early ; — but you do not sleep early. 

If you vvei-e only as you were : — if it were not 

too late ! If Madge could only love you, as you know 
she will, and must love one manly heart, there would be 
a world of joy opening before you. But it is too late ! 

You draw out Nelly to speak of Madge : Nelly is 
very prudent. " Madge is a dear girl," — she says. 
Does Nelly even distrust you ? It is a sad thing to be 
too much a man of the world ! 

You go back again to noisy, ambitious life : you try 
to drown old memories in its blaze, and its vanities. 
Your lot seems ca>t, beyond all change ; and you task 
yourself with its noisy fulfilment. But amid the 
silence, and the toil of your office hours, a strange 
desire broods over your spirit ; — a desire foi* more of 
manliness, — that manliness which feels itself a protector 
of loving, and trustful innocence. 

You look around upon the faces in which you have 
smiled unmeaning smiles : — there is nothing there to 
10^- 



226 Dream-Life. 

feed your dawning desires. You meet with those ready 
to coui-t you by flattering your vanity — by retailing the 
praises of what you may do well, — by odious famiharity, 
— by brazen proffer of friendship ; but you see in it 
only the emptiness, and the vanity, which you have 
studied to enjoy. 

Sickness comes over you, and binds you for weary 
days and nights ; — in which hfe hovers doubtfully, and 
the lips babble secrets that you cherish. It is aston- 
ishing how disease clips a man from the artificiahties of 
the world ! Lying lonely upon his bed, moaning, 
writhing, suftering, his soul joins on to the universe of 
souk by only natural bonds. The factitious ties of 
wealth, of place, of reputation, vanish from his bleared 
eyes ; and the earnest heart, deep under all, cra>ves 
only — heartiness ! 

The old craving of the office silence comes back : — 
not with the proud wish only — of being a protector, but 
— of being protected. And whatever may be the trust 
in that beneficent Power, who ' chasteneth whom he 
loveth,' — there is yet an earnest, human yearning toward 
some one, whose love — most, and whose duty — least, 
would call her to your side ; — whose soft hands would 
cool the fever of yours, — whose step .would wake a 
throb of joy, — whose voice would tie you to life, and 
whose presence would make the worst of Death — an 
Adieu ! 



Manly Hope. 227 

As you gain strength once more, you go back to 
Nelly's home. Her kindness does not falter ; every 
care and attention belong to you there. Again your 
eye rests upon that figure of Madge, and upon her face, 
wearing an even gentler expression, as she sees you 
sitting pale and feeble by the old hearth-stone. Sh(3 
brings flowers — for Nelly : you beg Nelly to place 
them upon the little table at your side. It is as yet 
the only taste of the country that you can enjoy. You 
love those flowers. 

After a time you grow strong, and walk in the fields. 
You linger until nightfall. You pass by the cottage 
where Madge lives. It is your pleasantest walk. The 
trees are greenest in that direction ; the shadows are 
softest ; the flowers are thickest. 

It is strange — this feeling in you. It is not the feel- 
ing you had for Laura Dalton. It does not even 
remind of that. That was an impulse; but this is 
gi'owth. That was strong; but this is — strength. You 
catch sight of her little notes to Nelly ; you read them 
over and over ; you treasure them ; you learn them by 
heart. There is something in the very wi-iting, that 
touches you. 

You bid her adieu with tones of kindness that trem- 
ble; — and that meet a half-trembling tone in reply. 
She is very good. 

If it were not too late ! 



IV. 

Manly Love. 

AND shall pride yield at length ! 
Pride ! and what has love to do with 

pride ? Let us see how it is. 

Madge is poor ; she is humble. You are rich ; you 
ai-e a man of the world ; you are met respectfully by 
the veterans of fashion ; you have gained perhaps a 
kind of brilUancy of position. 

Would it then be a condescension to love Madge ? 
Dai'e you ask yourself such a question ? Do you not 
know, — in spite of your worldliness, — that the man or 
the woman who condescends to love, never loves in ear- 
nest? 

But again, Madge is possessed of a purity, a dehcacy, 
and a dignity that lift her far above you, — that make you 



Manly Love. 229 

feel your weakness, and your unworthiness ; and it is 
the deep, and the mortifying sense of this unworthiness, 
that makes you bolster yourself upon your pride. You 
know that you do yourself honor, in loving such grace 
and goodness ; — you know that you would be honored 
tenfold more than you deserve, in being loved — by so 
much grace, and goodness. 

It scarce seems to you possible ; it is a joy too great 
to be hoped for : and in the doubt of its attainment, 
your old, worldly- vanity comes in, and tells you to — 
beware ; and to live on, in the splendor of your dissipa- 
tion, and in the lusts of your selfish habit. Yet still, 
underneath all, there is a deep, low, heart-voice, — 
quickened from above, — which assures you that you 
are capable of better thing's ; — that you are not wholly 
lost ; that a mine of unstarted tenderness still lies 
smouldering in your soul. 

And with this sense quickening your better nature, 
you venture the wealth of your whole heart-hfe, upon 
the hope that now blazes on yom- path. 

You are seated at your desk, working with such 

zeal of labor, as your ambitious projects never could 
command. It is a letter to Margaret Boyne, that so 
tasks your love, and makes the veins upon your fore- 
head swell with the earnestness of the employ. 

" Dear Madge, — May I not call you thus, if 



230 Dream-Life. 

only in memory of onr childish affections ; — and might 
I dare to hope that a riper affection which your cha- 
racter has awakened, may permit me to call you thus, 
always ? 

" If I have not ventured to speak, dear Madge, will 
you not believe that the consciousness of my own ill- 
desert has tied my tongue ; — will you not, at least, give 
me credit for a little remaining modesty of heart ? You 
know my life, and you know my character — what a 
sad jumble of errors, and of misfortunes have belonged 
to each. You know the caieless, and the vain purposes 
which have made me recreant to the better nature, 
which belonged to that sunny childhood, when we 
lived, and grew up — together. And will you not be- 
heve me when I say, that your grace of character, and 
kindness of heart, have drawn me back from the follies 
in which I lived ; and quickened new desires, which I 
thought to be wholly dead ? Can I indeed hope that 
you will overlook all that has gained your secret re- 
proaches ; and confide in a heart, which is made con- 
scious of better things, by the love — you have in- 
spired ? 

" Ah, Madge, it is not with a vain show of words, 
or with any counterfeit of feeling, that I write now ; — 
you know it is not; — you know that my heart is 
leaning toward you, with the freshness of its noblest 
instincts ; — you know that — I love you ! 



Manly Love. 231 

" Can I, dare I hope, that it is not spoken in vain ? 
I had thought in my pride, never to make such avowal, 
— never again to sue for affection ; but your gentle- 
ness, your modesty, your virtues of hfe and heart, 
have conquered me ! I am sure you will treat me 
with the generosity of a victor. 

" You know my weaknesses ; — I would not conceal 
from you a single one, — even to win you. I can offer 
nothing to you, w^hich will bear comparison in value, 
with what is yours to bestow. I can only ofter this 
feeble hand of mine — to guard you; and this poor 
heart — to love you ! 

"Am I rash? Am I extravagant, in word, or in 
hope? Forgive it then, dear Madge, for the sake 
of our old childish affection ; and beheve me, when I 
say, that w^hat is here written, — is written honestly, and 
tearfully. Adieu." 

It is with no fervor of boyish passion, that you fold 
this letter : it is with the trembling hand of eager, 
and earnest manhood. They tell you that man is 
not capable of love ; — so, the September sun is not 
capable of warmth ! It may not indeed be so fierce 
as that of July ; but it is steadier. It does not force 
great flaunting leaves into breadth and succulence ; 
but it matures whole harvests of plenty ! 

There is a deep and earnest soul pervading the 



232 Dream-Life. 

reply o\' Madge that makes it sacred; it is full of 
delicacy, and full of hope. Yet it is not final. Her 
heart lies entrenched within the ramparts of Duty 
and of Devotion. It is a citadel of strength, in the 
middle of the city of her affections. To win the way 
to it, thei'e must be not only earnestness of love, but 
earnestness of life. 

Weeks roll by ; and other lettei-s pass and are 
answered, — a glow of warmth beaming on either 
side. 

You are again at the home of Nelly ; she is very 
joyous ; she is the confident of Madge. Nelly feels, 
that with all your errors, you have enough inner good- 
ness of heart to make Madge happy ; and she feels — 
doubly — that Madge has such excess of goodness as 
will cover your heart with joy. Yet she tells you 
very little. She will give you no full assurance of the 
love of Madge ; she leaves that for youi'self to win. 

She will even tease you in her pleasant way, until 
hope almost changes to despair ; and your brow grows 
pale with the dread — that even now, your unworthiness 
may condemn you. 

It is summer weather ; and you have been walking 
over the hills of home with Madge, and Nelly. Nelly 
has found some excuse to leave you, — glancing at you 
most teazingly, as she hurries away. 

You are left sitting with Madge, upon a bank tufted 



Manly Love. 233 

with blue violets. You have been talking of the days 
of childhood, and some word has called up the old 
chain of boyish feeling, and joined it to your new 
hope. 

What you would say, crowds too fast for utterance ; 
and you abandon it. But you take from your pocket 
that little, broken bit of sixpence, — which you have 
found after long search,— and without a word, but 
with a look that tells your inmost thought, you lay 
it in the half-opened hand of Madge. 

She looks at you, with a slight suffusion of color, — 
seems to hesitate a moment, — raises her other hand, 
and draws from her bosom, by a bit of blue ribbon, a 
httle locket. She touches a spring, and there falls 
beside your rehque, — another, that had once belonged 
to it. 

Hope glows now like the sun. 

" And you have worn this, Maggie ?" 

" Always !" 

"Dear Madge!" 

" Dear Clarence !" 

And you pass your arm now, unchecked, around 

that yielding, graceful figure; and fold her to your 
bosom, with the swift, and blessed assurance, that your 
fullest, and noblest dream of love, is won ! 



Cheer and Children. 

WHAT a glow there is to the sun! What 
warmth — yet it does not oppress you: what 
coolness — yet it is not too cool. The birds sing 
sweetly ; you catch yourself watching to see what new 
songsters they can be : — they are only the old robins 
and thrushes; — yet what a new melody is in their 
throats ! 

The clouds hang gorgeous shapes upon the sky, — 
shapes they could hardly ever have fashioned before. 
The grass was never so green, the butter-cups were 
never so plenty ; there was never such a life in the 
leaves. It seems as if the joyousness in you, gave a 
throb to natme, that made every green thing buoyant. 

Faces too are changed : men look pleasantly : chil- 



C H E K R AND CHILDREN. 235 

dren ai-e all charming children : even babies look ten- 
der and lovable. The street beggar at your door is 
suddenly grown into a Belisarius, and is one of the 
most deserving heroes of modern times. Your mind 
is in a continued ferment ; you ghde through your toil 
— dashing out sparkles of passion — hke a ship in the 
sea. No difficulty daunts you : there is a kind of buoy- 
ancy in your soul, that rocks over danger or doubt, as 
sea-waves heave calmly and smoothly, over sunken 
rocks. 

You grow unusually amiable and kind ; you are 
earnest in your search of friends ; you shake hands 
with your office boy, as if he were your second cousin. 
You joke cheerfully with the stout washerwoman ; and 
give her a shilling over-change, and insist upon her 
keepmg it ; and grow quite merry at the recollection 
of it. You tap your hackman on the shoulder very 
familiarly, and tell him he is a capital fellow ; and 
don't allow him to whip his horses, except when driv- 
ing to the post-office. You even ask him to take a 
glass of beer with you, upon some chilly evening. You 
drink to the health of his wife. — He saj^s he has no 
wife :— whereupon you think him a very miserable 
man ; and give him a dollar, by vvay of consolation. 

You think all the editorials in the morning papers 
are remarkably well-written, — whether upon your side, 
or upon the other. You think tho stock-market has a 



236 Dream-Life. 

very clieerftil look, — even Avitli Erie — of which you are 
a large lioldei" — down to seventy-five. You wonder 
why you never admired Mrs. Hemans before, or Stod- 
dard, or any of the rest. 

You give a pleasant twirl to your fingers, as you 
saunter along the street ; and say — but not so loud as 
to be overheard — " She is mine — she is mine !" 

You wonder if Frank ever loved Nelly, one half as 
well as you love Madge ? — You feel quite sure he never 
did. You can hardly conceive how it is, that Madge 
has not been seized before now, by scores of enamored 
men, and borne off, like the Sabine women in Romish 
history. You chuckle over your future, hke a boy who 
has found a guinea, in groping for sixpences. You read 
over tli^ marriage service, — thinking of the time when 
you will take her hand, and shp the ring upon her fin- 
ger ; and repeat after the clergyman — ' for richer — for 
poorer ; for better — for woi-se '! A great deal of 
' worse ' there will be about it, you think ! 

Through all, your heart cleaves to that sweet image of 
the beloved Madge, as light cleaves to day. The weeks 
leap with a bound ; and the months only grow long, 
when you approach that day which is to make her yours. 
There are no flowers rare enough to make bouquets for 
her ; diamonds are too dim for her to wear ; pearls are 
tame. 

And after mai-riage, the weeks are eve?i shorter 



Cheer and Children. 237 

than before : you wonder why on earth all the single men 
in the world, do not rush tumultuously to the Altar ; you 
look upon them all, as a travelled man will look upon 
some conceited Dutch boor, who has never been be- 
yond the limits of his cabbage-garden. Married men, 
on the contrary, you regard as fellow-voyagers ; and 
look upon their wives — ugly as they may be — as, bet- 
ter than none. 

You blush a little, at first telling your butcher what 

* your wife ' would like ; you bargain with the grocer 
for sugars and teas, and wonder if he knows that you 
are a married man ? You practise your new way of 
talk upon your office boy ; — you tell him that ' your 
wife' expects you home to dinner ; and are astonished 
that he does not stare to hear you say it ! 

You w^onder if the people in the omnibus know, 
that Madge and you are just married ; and if the driver 
knows, that the shilhng you hand to him, is for ' self 
and wife?' You wonder if any body was ever so 
happy before, or ever will be so happy again ? 

You enter your name upon the hotel books as 

* Clarence and Lady '; and come back to look at 

it, — wondering if any body else has noticed it, — and 
thinking that it looks remarkably well. You cannot 
help thinking that every third man you meet in the 
hall, wishes he possessed your wife ; — nor do you think 
it very sinful in him, to wish it. You fear it is placing 



238 Dream-Life . 

temptation in the way of covetous men, to put Madge's 
little gaiters outside the chamber door, at night. 

Your home, when it is entered, is just what it should 
be : — quiet, small, — with everything she wishes, and 
nothing more than she wishes. The sun strikes it 
in the happiest possible way : — the piano is the 
sweetest-toned in the world : — the library is stocked to 
a charm ; — and Madge, that blessed wife, is there, — 
adorning, and giving hfc to it all. To think, even, of 
her possible death, is a suffering you class with the 
infernal tortures of the Inquisition. You grow twain 
of heart, and of purpose. Smiles seem made for 
marriage ; and you wonder how you ever wore them 
before ! 

So, a year and more wears off, of mingled home-life, 
visiting, and travel. A new hope and joy hghtens 
home : — there is a child there. 

What a joy to be a father ! What new 

emotions crowd the eye with tears, and make the hand 
tremble ! What a benevolence radiates from you 
toward the nurse, — toward the physician — toward 
evei-ybody ! What a holiness, and sanctity of love 
grows upon your old de\'otion to that wife of your 
bosom, — the mother of your child ! 

The excess of joy seems almost to blur the stories of 
happiness which attach to heaven. You are now 



Cheer and Children. 239 

joined, as you were never joined before, to the great 
family of man. Your name and blood will live after 
you; nor do you once tliink (what father can?) but 
that it will live honorably and well. 

With what a new air you walk the streets ! With 
what a triumph, you speak in yom* letter to Nelly, — 
of ' your fiimily !' Who, that has not felt it, knows 
what it is — to be ' a man of family !' 

How weak now, seem all the imaginations of your 
single life : what bare, dry skeletons of the reality, they 
furnished ! You pity the poor fellows who have no 
wives or children, — from your soul : you count their 
smiles, as empty smiles, put on to cover the lack that is 
in them. There is a free-masonry among fathers, that 
they know nothing of. You compassionate them 
deeply : you think them worthy objects of some 
charitable association : you would cheerfully buy tracts 
for them, if they would but read them, — tracts on 
marriage and children. 

And then ' the boy' such a boy ! 

There was a time, when you thought all babies very 

much ahke : alike ? Is your boy like anything, 

except the wonderful fellow that he is ? Was there 
ever a baby seen, or even read of, hke that baby ! 

^Look at him : — pick him up in his long, white 

govm : he may have an excess of colour, — but such 
a pretty colour ! he is a little pouty about the mouth — 



240 Dream-Life. 

but such a mouth ! His hair is a httle scant, and 
he is rather wandering in the eye ; — but, Good 
Heavens, — what an eye ! 

There was a time, whei) you thought it very absurd 
for fathers to talk about their children ; but it does not 
seem at all absurd now. You think, on the contrary, 
that your old friends, who used to sup with you at the 
club, would be dehghted to know how your baby is 
getting on, and how much he measures around the calf 
of the leg ! If they jDay you a visit, you are quite sure 
they are in an agony to see Frank ; and you hold the 
little squirming fellow in your arms, half conscience- 
smitten, for provoking them to such envy, as they must 
be suffering. You make a settlement upon the boy 
with a chuckle, — as if you were treating yourself to a 
mint-julep, — instead of conveying away a few thousands 
of seven per cents. 

Then the boy developes, astonishingly. What 

a head — what a foot, — what a voice ! And he 
is so quiet withal ; — never known to cry, except 
under such provocation as would draw tears from 
a heart of adamant ; in short, for the first six 
months, he is never anything, but gentle, patient, 
earnest, loving, intellectual, and magnanimous. You 
are half afraid that some of the physicians will be 
reporting the case, as one of the most remarkable 



Cheer and Children. 241 

instances of perfect moral and physical development, on 
record. 

But the years roll on, in the which your extravagant 
fancies, die into the earnest maturity of a father's love. 
You struggle gaily with the cares that life brings to 
your door. You feel the strength of three beings in 
your single arm ; and feel your heart warming toward 
God and man, with the added warmth of two other 
loving, and trustful beings. 

How eagerly you watch the first tottering step of 
that boy : how you riot in the joy and pride, that swell 
in that mother's eyes, as they follow his feeble, stagger- 
ing motions ! Can God bless his creatures, more than 
he has blessed that dear Madge, and you ? Has Heaven 
even richer joys, than live in that home of yours ? 

By and by, he speaks ; and minds tie together by 
language, as the hearts have long tied by looks. He 
wanders with you, feebly, and with slow, wondering 
paces, upon the verge of the great universe of thought. 
His little eye sparkles with some vague fancy that 
comes upon him first, by language. Madge teaches 
him the words of aflfection, and of thankfulness ; and 
she teaches him to lisp infant prayer ; and by secret 
pains, (how could she be so secret ?) instructs him 
in some little phrase of endearment, that she knows 
will touch your heart ; and then, she watches yom* 
coming ; and the httle fellow runs toward you, and 
11 



242 Dream-Life. 

warbles out his lesson of love, in tones that forbid you 
any answer, — save only those brimming eyes, — turned 
fii-st on her, and then on him ; — and poorly concealed, 
by the quick embrace, and the kisses which you shower 
in transport ! 

Still slip on the years, like brimming bowls of 
nectar ! Another Madge is sister to Frank ; and a 
little Nelly, is younger sister to this other Madge. 

Three of them ! — a charmed, and mystic 

number ; — which if it be broken in these young 
days, — as, alas, it may be ! — will only yield a cherub 
angel, to float over you, and to float over them — to 
wean you, and to wean them, from this world, where all 
joys do perish, to that seraph world, where joys do 
last forever ! 



VI. 

A Dream of Darkness. 

IS our life a sun, tliat it should radiate light and 
heat forever ? Do not the calmest, and brightest 
days of autumn, show clouds that drift their ragged 
edges over the golden disc ; and bear down swift, with 
their weight of vapors, until the whole sun's surface is 
shrouded ; — and you can see no shadow of tree, or 
flower upon the land, because of the greater, and 
gulphing shadow of the cloud ? 

Will not hfe bear me out ; — will not truth, earnest 
and stern, around me, make good the terrible imagi- 
nation that now comes swooping heavily, and darkly, 
upon my brain ? 

. You are living in a little village, not far away fi'om 
the city. It is a graceful, and luxurious home that you 



244 Dream-Life. 

possess. The holly and the laurel gladden its lawn in 
winter ; and bowers of blossoms sweeten it through all 
the summer. You know, each day of your return from 
the town, where first you will catch sight of that 
graceful figure, flitting like a shadow of love, beneath 
the trees : you know well, where you will meet the 
joyous, and noisy welcome of stout Frank, and of 
tottling Nelly. Day after day, and week after week, 
they fail not. 

A friend sometimes attends you ; and a friend to 
you, is always a friend to Madge. In the city, you fall 
in once more with your old acquaintance Dalton ; — 
the graceful, winning, yet dissolute man that his youth 
promised. He wishes to see your cottage home. 
Your heart half hesitates : yet it seems folly to cherish 
distrust of a boon companion, in so many of your 
revels. 

Madge receives him with that sweet smile, which 
welcomes all your friends. He gains the heart of 
Frank, by talking of his toys, and of his pigeons ; and 
he wins upon the tenderness of the mother, by his 
attentions to the child. Even you, repent of your 
passing shadow of dislike, and feel your heart warming 
toward him, as he takes httle Nelly in his arms, and 
provokes her joyous prattle. 

Madge is unbounded in her admiration of your 
friend : he renews, at your solicitation, his visit : he 



A. Dream of Darkness. 246 

proves kinder than ever ; and you grow ashamed of 
your distrust. 

Madge is not learned in the arts of a city life : 
the accomplishments of a man of the world are 
almost new to her : she listens with eagerness to 
Dalton's graphic stories of foreign fetes, and luxury : 
she is charmed with his clear, bold voice, and with his 
manly execution of little operatic airs. 

She is beautiful — that wife who has made your 

heart whole, by its division — fearfully beautiful ! And 
she is not cold, or impassive : her heart though fond, 
and earnest, is yet human : — we are all human. The 
accomplishments and graces of the world must needs 
take hold upon her fancy. And a fear creeps over you, 
that you dare not whisper, — that those graces may 
cast into the shade, your own yearning, and silent 
tenderness. 

But this is a selfish fear, that you think you have no 
right to cherish. She takes pleasure in the society 
of Dalton, — what right have you, to say her — nay ? 
His character indeed is not altogether such as you could 
wish ; but will it not be selfish to tell her even this ? 
Will it not be even worse, and show taint of a lurking 
suspicion, which you know would wound her grievously ? 
You struggle with your distrust, by meeting him more 
kindly than ever : yet, at times, there will steal over 
you a sadness, — which that dear Madge detects, and 



246 Dream-Life. 

sorrowing in her turn, tries to draw away 6'om you by 
the touching kindness of sympathy. Her look, and 
manner kill all your doubt ; and you show that it 
is gone, and piously conceal the cause, by welcoming in 
gayer tones than ever, the man who has fostered it, by 
his presence. 

Business calls you away to a great distance from 
home : it is the first long parting of your real man- 
hood. And can suspicion, or a fear, lurk amid those 
tearful embraces ? — Not one, thank God, — not one ! 

Your letters, frequent and earnest, bespeak your in- 
creased devotion ; and the embraces you bid her give 
to the sweet ones of your Kttle flock, tell of the calm- 
ness, and sufficiency of your love. Her letters too, are 
running over with affection : — what though she men- 
tions the frequent visits of Dalton, and tells stories of 
his kindness and attachment? You feel safe in her 
strength : and yet — yet there is a brooding terror that 
rises out of your knowledge of Dalton's character. 

And can you tell her this ; can you stab her fondness, 
now that you are away, with even a hint of what would 
crush her dehcate nature ? 

What you know to be love, and what you fancy to 
be duty, struggle long : but love conquers. And with 
sweet trust in her, and double trust in God, you await 
your retm-n. That return will be speedier than you 
think. 



A Dream of Darkness. 24*7 

You receive one day a letter : it is addressed in the 
hand of a friend, who is often at the cottage, but who 
Las rarely wi-itten to you. What can have tempted 
him now ? Has any harm come near your home ? 
No wonder your hands tremble at the opening of that 

sheet ; no wonder that your eyes run like hghtning 

over the hurried lines. Yet there is little in them — 
very little. The hand is stout and fair. It is a calm 
letter, — a friendly letter ; but it is short — terribly short. 
It bids you come home — ' at once P 

And you go. It is a pleasant country you have 

to travel through ; but you see very little of the country. 
It is a dangerous voyage perhaps, you have to make ; 
but you think very little of the danger. The creaking 
of the timbers, and the lashing of the waves, are quiet- 
ing music, compared with the storm of your raging 
fears. All the while, you associate Dalton with the 
terror that seems to hang over you; and yet, — your 
trust in Madge, is true as Heaven ! 

At length you approach that home ; — there lies 
your cottage lying sweetly upon its hill-side ; and the 
autumn winds are soft ; and the maple-tops sway 
gracefully, all clothed in the scarlet of their frost-dress. 
Once again, as the sun sinks behind the mountain with 
a trail of glory, and the violet haze tints the grey 
clouds, hke so many robes of angels, — you take heart 
and courage ; and with firm reliance on the Providence 



248 Dream-Life. 

that fashions all forms of beauty, whether in Heaven 
or in heart, — your fears spread out, and vanish with 
the waning twilight. 

She is not at the cottage door to meet you ; she 
does not expect you ; and yet your bosom heaves, and 
your breathing is quick. Your friend meets you, and 

shakes your hand. " Clarence," he says, with the 

tenderness of an old friend, — " be a man !" 

Alas, you are a man ; — with a man's heart, and a 
man's fear, and a man's agony ! Little Frank comes 
bounding toward you joyously^^'et under traces of 
tears : — " Oh, Papa, Mother is gone !" 

" Gone !" And you turn to the face of your 

friend ; — it is well he is near by, or you would have 
fallen. 

He can tell you very httle; he has known the 
character of Dalton ; he has seen with fear his assi- 
duous attentions — tenfold multiphed since your leave. 
He has trembled for the issue : this very morning he 
observed a traveUing carriage at the door ; — they drove 
away together. You have no strength to question him. 
You see that he fears the worst : — he does not know 
Madge, so well as you. 

And can it be? Are you indeed widowed 

with that most terrible of widowhoods ? — Is your wife 
hving, — and yet — lost ! Talk not to such a man of 



A Dream of Darkness. 249 

the woes of sickness, of poverty, of death ; — he will 
laugh at your mimicry of grief. 

All is blackness ; whichever way you turn, it is 

the same ; there is no light ; your eye is put out ; 
your soul is desolate forever ! The heart, by which 
you had grown up into the full stature of joy, and bless- 
ing, is rooted out of you, and thrown like something 
loathsome, at which the carrion dogs of the world 
scent, and snuffle ! 

They will point at you, as the man who has lost all 
that he prized ; and she has stolen it, whom he prized 
more than what was stolen ! And he, the accursed 

miscreant But no, it can never be ! Madge 

is as true as Heaven ! 

Yet she is not there : whence comes the light that 
is to cheer you ? 

Your children ? 

Aye, your children, — your little Nelly, — ^yom* noble 
Frank, — they are yours ; — doubly, trebly, tenfold yours, 
now that she, their mother, is a mother no more to 
them, forever ! 

Aye, close your doors ; shut out the world ; — draw 
close youi* curtains ; — fold them to your heart, — your 
crushed, bleeding, desolate heart ! Lay your forehead 
to the soft cheek of your noble boy ; — beware, bewai-e 
how you dampen that damask cheek with your scald- 
ing tears : — yet you cannot help it ; — they fall — great 
11* 



250 Dream-Life. 

di'ops, — a river of tears, as you gather him convulsively 
to your bosom ! 

" Father, why do you cry so ?" says Frank, with the 
tears of dreadful sympathy starting from those eyes of 
childhood. 

" Why, Papa ?"— mimes httle Nelly. 

Answer them if you dare ! Try it ; — what 

words — blundering, weak words, — choked with agony, 
— leading no where, — ending in new, and convulsive 
clasps of your weeping, motherless children ! 

Had she gone to her grave, there would have been 
a holy joy — a great, and swelling grief hideed, — but 
your poor heart would have found a rest in the quiet 
churchyard ; and your feelings rooted in that cherished 
grave, would have stretched up toward Heaven their 
delicate leaves, and caught the dews of His grace, who 
watcheth the lihes. But now, — with your heart cast 
under foot, or buffeted on the lips of a lying world, — 

finding no shelter, and no abiding place alas, we 

do guess at infinitude, only by suffering ! 

^Madge, Madge ! can this be so ? Are you not 

still the same, sweet, guileless child of Heaven ? 



VII. 

Peace. 

IT is a dream ; — fearful to be sure, — but only a 
dream ! Madge is true. That soul is honest ; it 
could not be otherwise. God never made it to be 
false ; He never made the sun for darkness. 

And before the evening has waned to midnight, 
sweet day has broken on your gloom; — Madge is 
folded to your bosom ; — sobbing fearfully ; — not for 
guilt, or any shadow of guilt, but for the agony she 
reads upon your brow, and in your low sighs. 

The mystery is all cleared by a few lightning words 
fi'om her indignant lips ; and her whole figure trembles, 
as she shrinks within your embrace, with the thought 
of that great evil, that seemed to shadow you. The 
villain has sought by every art to beguile her into ap- 



252 Dream-Life. 

pearance which should compromise her character, and 
so wound her dehcacy, as to take away the courage for 
return : he has even wrought upon her affection for 
you, as his master-weapon : a skilfully-contrived story 
of some accident that had befallen you, had wrought 
upon her — to the sudden, and silent leave of home. 
But he has failed. At the first suspicion of his falsity, 
her dignity and virtue shivered all his malice. She 
shudders at the bare thought of that fiendish scheme, 
which has so lately broken on her view. 

" Oh, Clarence, Clarence, could you for one moment 
believe this of me ?" 

" Dear Madge, forgive me, if a dreamy horror did 
for an instant palsy my better thought; — it is gone 
utterly ; — it will never — never come again !" 

And there she leans, with her head pillowed on 
your shoulder, the same sweet angel, that has led 
you in the way of light ; and who is still your blessing, 
and your pride. 

He — and you forbear to name his name — is gone ; — 
Hying vainly from the consciousness of guilt, with the 
curse of Cain upon him, — hastening toward the day, 
when Satan shall clutch his own ! 

A heavenly peace descends upon you that night ; — 
all the more sacred and calm, for the fearful agony 
til. -it has gone before. A Heaven that seemed lost, is 
yours. A love that you had almost doubted, is beyond 



Peace. 253 

all suspicion. A heart that in the madness of your 
frenzy, you had dared to question, you worship now, 
with bhi^hes of shame. You thank God, for this great 
goodness, ;is you never thanked him for any earthly 
blessing before ; and with this twin gratitude lying on 
your hearts, and clearing your face to smiles, you live 
on together the old Life of joy, and of affection. 

Again with brimming nectar, the years fill up their 
vases. Your children grow into the same earnest 
joyousness, and with the same home faith, which 
lightened upon your young dreams ; and toward which, 
you seem to go back, as you riot with them in their 
Christmas joys, or upon the velvety lawn of June. 

Anxieties indeed overtake you; but they are those 
anxieties which only the selfish would avoid — anxieties 
that better the heart, with a great weight of tenderness. 
It may be, that your mischievous Frank runs wild 
with the swift blood of boyhood, and that the hours 
are long, which wait his coming. It may be that 
your heart echoes in silence, the mother's sobs, as she 
watches his fits of waywardness, and showei*s upon his 
very neglect, excess of love. 

Danger perhaps creeps upon httle, joyous Nelly, 
which makes you tremble for her life ; the mother's 
tears are checked that she may not deepen your grief; 
and her care a'uardf^ the little sufferer, like a Frovi- 



254 Dream -Life. 

dence. The nights hang long and heavy ; dull, stifled 
breathing wakes the chamber with ominous sound ; 
the mother's eye scarce closes, but rests with fond 
sadness upon the little struggling victim of sickness ; 
her hand rests like an angel touch upon the brow, 
all beaded with the heats of fever ; the straggling, 
gray light of morning breaks through the crevices 
of the closed blinds, — bringing stir, and bustle to the 
world, but, in your home, — lighting only the dark- 
ness. 

Hope sinking in the mother's heart, takes hold on 
Faith in God ; and her prayer, and her placid look 
of submission, — more than all youi* philosophy, — add 
strength to your faltering courage. 

But little Nelly brightens; her faded features take 
on bloom again ; she knows you ; she presses your 
hand; she draws down your cheek to her parched 
Up ; she kisses you, and smiles. The mother's brow 
loses its shadow; day dawns within, as well as without; 
and on bended knees, God is thanked ! 

Perhaps poverty faces you ; — your darling schemes 
break down. One by one, with failing heart, you 
strip the luxuries from life. But the sorrow which 
oppresses you, is not the selfish sorrow which the 
lone man feels ; it is far nobler ; its chiefest mourning 
is over the despoiled home. Frank must give up his 
promised travel ; Madge must lose her favorite pony ; 



Peace. 255 

Nelly must be denied her little f6te upon the lawn. 
I'lio home itself, endeared by so many scenes of 
happiness, and by so many of suffering — must be 
given up. It is hard — very hard to tear away your 
wife, from the flowers, the birds, the luxuries, that she 
has made so dear. 

Now, she is far stronger than you. She contrives 
new joys ; she wears a holy calm ; she cheers by 
a new hopefulness ; she buries even the memory of 
luxury, in the riches of the humble home, that her 
wealth of heart endows. Her soul, catching radiance 
from that Heavenly world, where her hope lives, 
kindles amid the p-rowino- shadows, and sheds balm 
upon the little griefs, — like the serene moon, slanting 
the dead sun's hfe, upon the night ! 

Courage wakes in the presence of those dependent 
on your toil. Love arms your hand, and quickens 
your brain. Resolutions break large from the swelUng 
soul. Energy leaps into your action, like light. Grad- 
ually you bring back into your humble home, a 
few traces of the luxury that once adorned it. That 
wife whom it is your greatest pleasure to win to 
smiles, — wears a half sad look, as she meets these 
proofs of love ; she fears that you are periUing too 
much, for her pleasure. 

For the first time in hfe you deceive her. You 

have won wealth again ; you now step firmly upon your 



256 D R E A M - L I F E . 

new-gained sandals of gold. But you conceal it from 
lier. You contrive a little scheaie of surprise, with 
Frank alone, in the secret. 

You purchase again the old home ; you stock it, as 
far as may be, with the old luxuries ; a now harp is in 
the place of that one which beguiled so many hours of 
joy ; new and cherished flowers bloom again upon the 
window ; her birds hang, and wai'ble their melody, where 
tliey warbled it befoi-e. A pony — like as possible to 
the old — is there for Madge ; a fete is secretly con- 
trived upon the lawn. You even place the old, famihar 
books, upon the parlor table. 

The birth-day of your own Madge, is approaching : 
— a fete you never pass by, without home-rejoicing-s. 
You drive over with her, upon that morning, for ano- 
ther look at the old place ; a cloud touches her brow, — 
but she yields to your wish. An old servant, — whom 
you had known in better days — throws open the gates. 

"It is too — too sad," says Madge — "let us go 

back, Clarence, to our own home ; — we are happy 
there." 

" A httle farther, Madge." 

The wife steps slowly over what seems the sepulchre 
of so many pleasures ; the children gambol as of old, 
and pick flowei*s. But the mother checks them. 

" They are not ours now, my children !" 

Yoa stroll to the very door; the goldfinches are 



Peace. 25*7 

hanging upon the wall ; the mignionette is in the win- 
dow. You feel the hand of Madge trembnng upon 
your arm ; she is struggling with her weakness. 

A tidy waiting woman shows you into the old par- 
lor : there is a harp ; and there too, such books as 

we loved to read. 

Madge is overcome ; now, she entreats : — " Let us 
go away, Clarence !" and she hides her face. 

" Never, dear Madge, never ! it is yours — all 

yours !" 

She looks up in your face ; she sees your look of 
triumph ; she catches sight of Frank bursting in at the 
old hall-door, all radiant with joy. 

" Frank ! — Clarence !" — the tears forbid any 

more. 

" God bless yoii, Madge ! God bless you 1" 

And thus, in peace and in joy, Manhood passes on 
into the third season of our hfe — even as golden 
Autumn, sinks slowly into the tomb of Winter. 



tDintcr; 

Slje JBreama of ^ge. 



DREAMS OF AGE. 



Winter. 



SLOWLY, thickly, fastly, fall the snow flakes,— like 
the seasons upon the life of man. At the fii-st, 
they lose themselves in the brown mat of herbage, or 
gently melt, as they fall upon the broad stepping stone 
at the door. But as hour after hour passes, the 
feathery flakes stretch their white cloak plainly on the 
meadow, and chilling the doorstep with their multitude, 
cover it with a mat of pearl. 

The dried grass tips pierce the mantle of white, like 
so many serried spears ; but as the storm goes softly 
on, they sink one by one to their snowy tomb ; and 
presently show nothing of all their army, save one or 
two straggling banners of blackened and shrunken 
daisies. 



262 Dream -Life. 

Across the wide meadow that stretches fi'om my 
window, I can see nothing of those hills which were so 
green in summer : between me and them, lie only the 
soft, slow moving masses, filling the air with whitenes.-. 
I catch only a ghmpse of one gaunt, and bare-ai"med 
oak, looming through the feathery multitude, like a tail 
ship's spars breaking through fog. 

The roof of the barn is covered ; and the leaking 
eaves show dark stains of water, that trickle down the 
weather-beaten boards. The pear-trees that wore sue': 
weight of greenness in the lesify June, now stretch their 
bare arms to the snowy blast, and carry upon each tiny 
bough, a narrow burden of winter. 

The old house dog marches stately through the 
strange covering of earth, and seems to ponder on the 
welcome he will show, — and shakes the flakes from his 
long ears, and with a vain snap at a floating feather, he 
stalks again to his dry covert in the shed. The lambs 
that belonged to the meadow flock, with their feeding 
ground all covered, seem to wonder at their losses ; but 
take courage from the quiet air of the veteran sheep, 
and gambol after them, as they move sedately toward 
the shelter of the barn. 

The cat, driven from the kitchen door, beats a coy 
retreat, with long reaches of her foot, upon the yielding 
surface. The matronly hens saunter out, at a httle 
lifting of the storm ; and eye curiously, with heads 



W I N T E ii. 203 

half turned, their sinking steps ; and then fall back with 
a quiet cluck of satisfaction, to the wholesome gravel by 
the stable door. 

By and by, the snow flakes pile more leisurely : they 
grow large and scattered, and come more slowly than 
before. The hills that were brown, heave into sight — 
great, rounded billows of white. The gray wood^i 
look shrunken to half their height, and stand waving 
in the storm. The wind freshens, and scatters the 
light flakes that crown the burden of the snow ; and 
as the day droops, a clear, bright sky of steel color, 
cleaves the land, and clouds, and sends down a chilling 
wind to bank the walls, and to freeze the storm. The 
moon rises full and round, and plays with a joyous 
chill, over the glistening raiment of the land. 

I pile my fire with the clean cleft hickory ; and mus- 
ing over some sweet story of the olden time, I wander 
into a rich realm of thought, until my eyes grow dijn, 
and dreaming of battle and of prince, I fall to sleep in 
my old farm chamber. 

xVt morning, I find my dreams all written on the 
window, in crystals of fairy shape. The cattle, one by 
one, with ears frost-tipped, and with frosted noses, wend 
their way to the watering-place in the meadow. Om^ 
by one they drink, and crop at the stunted herbage, 
which the warm spring keeps green and bare. 

A hound bays in the distance ; the smoke of cot- 



264 Dream- Life. 

tages rises straight toward Heaven ; a lazy jingle of 
sleigh-bells wakens the quiet of the high-road ; and 
upon the hills, the leafless woods stand low, like 
crouching armies, with guns and spears in rest ; and 
among them, the scattered spiral pines rise like banner- 
men, uttering with their thousand tongues of green, 
the proud war-cry — ' God is with us !' 

But, the sky of winter is as capricious as the sky of 
spring — even as the old wander in thought, hke the 
vagaries of a boy. 

Before noon, the heavens are mantled with a leaden 
gray ; the eaves that leaked in the glow of the sun, 
now tell their tale of morning's warmth, in ciystal 
ranks of icicles. The cattle seek their shelter ; the 
few, lingering leaves of the white oaks, rustle dismally ; 
the pines breathe sighs of mourning. As the night 
darkens, and deepens the storm, the house dog bays ; 
the children crouch in the wide chimney corners ; the 
yleety rain comes in sharp gusts. And, as T sit by the 
light leaping blaze in my chamber, the scattered hail- 
drops beat upon my window, like the tappings of an 
Old Man's cane. 



I. 

What is Gone. 

GONE ! Did it ever strike you, my reader, how much 
meaning Ues in that little monosyllable — gone ? 

Say it to yourself at nightfall, when the sun has 
sunk under the hills, and the crickets chirp — ' gone. 
Say it to youi-self, when the night is far over, and you 
wake with some sudden start, from pleasant di'eams, — 
' gone.' Say it to yourself in some country church- 
yard, where your father, or your mother, sleeps under 
the blooming violets of spring — ' gone.' Say it, in 
your sobbing prayer to Heaven, as you cling lovingly, 
but oh, how vainly, to the hand of your sweet wife — 
' gone !' 

Aye, is there not meaning in it ? And now, what is 
gone : — or rather, what is not gone ? Childhood is 
12 



266 Dream -Life. 

gone with all its blushes, and fairness, — with all its 
health and wanton, — with all its smiles, like glimpses 
of heaven ; and all its tears, which were but the suffu- 
sion of joy. 

Youth is gone ; — bright, hopeful youth, when you 
counted the years with jewelled numbers, and hung 
lamps of ambition at your path, which lighted the 
palace of renown ; — when the days were woven into 
weeks of bUthe labor, and the weeks were rolled into 
harvest months of triumph, and the months were 
bound into golden sheaves of years — all, gone 1 

The sti-ength and pride of manhood is gone ; your 
heart and soul have stamped their deepest dye; the 
time of power is past; your manliness has told its 

tale ; henceforth your career is doivn ; hitherto, 

you have journeyed up. You look back upon a 
decade, as you once looked upon a half score of 
months ; a year has become to your slackened memory, 
and to your dull perceptions, like a week of childhood. 
Suddenly and swiftly, come past you, great whirls of 
gone-by thought, and wrecks of vain labor, eddying 
upon the stream that rushes to the grave. The sweep- 
ing outlines of life, that lay once before the vision — 
rolhng into wide billows of years, like easy hfts of a 
broad mountain-range, — now seem close-packed to- 
gether, as with a Titan hand ; and you see only 



What is Gone. 267 

crowded, craggy heights, — hke Alpine fastnesses — parted 
with glaciers of grief, and leaking abundant tears ! 

Yom- friends are gone ; — they who counselled and 
advised you, and who protected your weakness, will 
guard it no more forever. One by one, they have 
dropped away as you have journeyed on ; and yet your 
journey does not seem a long one. Life, at the longest, 
is but a bubble that bursts, so soon as it is rounded. 

Nelly, your sweet sister, to whom your heart clung 
so fondly in the young days, and to whom it has clung 
ever since, in the strongest bonds of companionship, — 
is gone, — with the rest ! 

Your thought, — wayward now, and flickering, — runs 
over the old days with quick, and fevered step ; it 
brings back, faintly as it may, the noisy joys, and the 
safety, that belonged to the old garret roof ; it figures 
again the image of that calm-faced father, — long since 
sleeping beside your mother ; it rests hke a shadow, 
upon the night when Charlie died ; it grasps the old 
figures of the school-room, and kindles again (how 
strange is memoiy), the fire that shed its lustre upon 
the curtains, aind the ceiling, as you lay groaning with 
your first hours of sickness. 

Your flitting recollection brings back with gushes of 
exultation, the figure of that little, blue-eyed hoyden, — 
Madge, — as she came with her work, to pass tlio long 
evenings with Nelly ; it calls again the shy glaiK ; that 



268 Dream-Life. 

you cast upon her, and your naive ignorance of all the 
little counter-play, that might well have passed between 
Frank and Nelly. Your mother's form too, clear and 
distinct, comes upon the wave of your rocking thought ; 
her smile touches you now in age, as it never touched 
you in boyhood. 

The image of that fair Miss Dalton, who led your 
fancy into such mad captivity, glides across your vision 
hke the fragment of a crazy dream — long gone by. 
The country-home, where hved the grandfather of 
Frank, gleams kindly in the sunhght of your memory ; 
and still, — poor, blind Fanny, — long since gathered to 
that rest, where her closed eyes will open upon visions 
of joy, — draws forth a sigh of pity. 

Then, comes up that sweetest, and brightest vision 
of love, and the doubt and care which ran before it, — 
when your hope groped eagerly through your pride, 
and worldhness, toward the sainted purity of her, 
whom you know to be — all too good ; — when you 
trembled at the thought of your own vices, and black- 
nesfi, in the presence of her, who seemed — virtue's self. 
And even now, your old heart bounds with joy, as you 
recal the first timid assurance, — that you were blessed 
in the possession of her love, and that you might live 
in her smiles. 

Your thought runs like floating melody, over the calm 
joy that followed yon through so many years ; — to the 



What is Gone. 269 

pr^.ttling cliildreii, who were there to bless your path. 
How i)oor, seem now your transports, as you met their 
childish embraces, and mingled in their childish em- 
ploy ; — how utterly weak, the actual, when compared 
with that glow of affection, which memory lends to the 
scene ! 

Yet all this is gone; and the anxieties are gone, 
which knit your heart so strongly to those children, 
and to her — the mother ;- -anxieties which distressed 
you, — Avhich you would eagerly have shunned ; yet, 
whose memory you would not now bargain away, for a 
king's ransom! What w^re the sunlight worth, if 
clouds did not sometimes hide its brightness ; what 
were the spring, or the summer, if the lessons of the 
chilhng winter did not teach us the story of ;;heir 
warmth ? 

The days are gone too, in wh^ch you may have 
lingered under the sweet suns Oi. Italy, — with the 
cherished one beside you, and the eager children, learn- 
ing new prattle, in the soft language of those Eastern 
lands. The evenings are gont. in which you loitered 
under the trees, \vith those dear t es, under the hght 
of a harvest moon, and talked of your blooming hopes, 
and of the stirring plans of your manhood. There are 
no more ambitious hopes — no more sturdy plans ! 
Life's work has rounded into the evening that shortens 
labor. 



270 D R IC A M - L I F E . 

And as you loiter in dreams over the wide waste of 
what is gone, — a mingled array of griefs and of joys — 
of failures, and of triumphs, — you bless God, that there 
has been so much of joy, belonging to your shattered 
life ; and you pray God, with the vain fondness that 
belongs to a parent's heart, — that more of joy, and less 
of toil, may come near to the cherished ones, who bear 
up your hope and name. 

And with your silent prayer, comes back the old 
teachings, and vagaries of the boyish heart, in its 
reaches toward Heaven. You recal the old church- 
reckoning of your goodness : is there much more of it 
now, than then ? Is not Heaven just as high, and the 
world as sadly — broad ? 

Alas, for the poor tale of goodness, which age brings 
to the memory ! There may be crowning acts of 
benevolence, shining here and there ; but the margin 
of what has not been done, is very broad. How weak 
and insignificant, seems the story of life's goodness, and 
profit, when Death begins to slant his shadow upon our 
souls ! How infinite, in the comparison, seems that 
Eternal goodness, which is crowned with mercy. How 
self vanishes, like a blasted thing ; and only lives — 
if it lives at all, — in the glow of that redeeming light, 
which radiates from the Cross, and the Throne ! 



II. 

What is Left. 

BUT nnich as there is gone of life, and of its 
joys, — very much remains ; — very much in 
earnest, and very much more in hope. Still, you see 
visions, and you dream dreams, of the times that are 
to come. 

Your home, and heart are left ; within that home, 
the old Bible holds its wonted place, which was the 
monitor of your boyhood ; and now, more than ever, 
it prompts those reverent reaches of the spirit, which 
go beyond even the track of dreams. 

That cherished Madge, the partner of your hfe and 
joy, still lingers, though her step is feeble, and her eyes 
are dimmed; — not, as once, attracting you by any 
outward show of beauty ; your heart glowing through 



272 D R E A M - L I F E . 

the memory of a life of joy, needs no such stimulant 
to the affections. Your hearts are knit together by a 
habit of growth, and a unanimity of desire. There 
is less to remind of the vanities of earth, and more to 
quicken the hopes of a time, when body yields to 
spirit. 

Your own poor, battered hulk, wants no jaunty- 
trimmed craft for consort ; but twin of heart, and soul, 
as you are twin of years, you float tranquilly toward 
that haven, which lies before us all. 

Your children, now almost verging on maturity, 
bless your hearth, and home. Not one is gone. 
Frank indeed, that wild fellow of a youth, who has 
wrought your heart into perplexing anxieties again and 
again, as you have seen the wayward dashes of his 
young blood, — is often away. But his heart yet- 
centres, where yours centres ; and his absence is only 
a nearer, and bolder strife, with that fierce world, 
whose circumstances, every man of force, and energy, 
is born to conquer. 

His i-eturn, from time to time, with that proud 
figure of opening manliness, and that full flush of health, 
speaks to your aflfections, as you could never have 
beheved it would. It is not for a man, who is the 
father of a man, to show any weakness of the heart, 
or any over-sensitiveness, in those ties which bind him 
to his kin. And yet — yet, as you sit by your fire-side, 



What is Left. 273 

with your clear, gray eye, feasting in its feebleness on 
that proud figure of a man, — who calls you — ' father,' 
— and as you see his fond, and loving attentions to 
that one, who has been yom* partner in all anxieties, 
and joys, — there is a throbbing within your bosom 
that makes you almost wish him young again : — 
that you might embrace him now, as when he warbled 

in your rejoicing ear, those first words of love ! Ah, 

how httle does a son know the secret and craving 
tenderness of a parent ; — how little conception has he, 
of those silent bursts of fondness, and of joy, which 
attend his coming, and which crown his parting ! 

There is young Madge too, — dark-eyed, tall, with a 
pensive shadow resting on her face, — the very image 
of refinement, and of delicacy. She is thoughtful; 
. — not breaking out, like the hoyden, flax-haired Nelly, 
into bursts of joy, and singing, — but stealing upon 
your heart, with a gentle and quiet tenderness, that 
diffuses itself throughout the household, like a soft 
zephyr of summer. 

There are friends too yet left, who come in upon 
your evening hours ; and light up the loitering time 
with dreamy story of the years that are gone. How 
eagerly you listen to some gossipping veteran friend, 
who with his deft words, calls up the thread of some 
bye-gone years of life ; and with what a careless, yet 
grateful recognition, you lapse, as it were, into the 
12^- 



274 Dream-Life. 

current of the past; and live over again, by your 
hospitable blaze, the stir, the joy, and the pride of your 
lost manhood. 

The children of friends too, have grown upon your 
march ; and come to welcome you with that reverent 
deference, which always touches the heart of age. 
That wild boy Will, — the son of a dear friend — who 
but a httle while ago, was worrying you with his 
boyish pranks, has now shot up into tall, and graceful 
youth ; and evening after evening, finds him making 
part of your Uttle household group. 

Does the fond old man think that he is all the 

attraction ! 

It may be that in your dreamy speculations, about 
the future of your children (for still you dream) you 
think that Will, may possibly become the husband 
of the sedate and kindly Madge, It worries you to 
find Nelly teasing him as she does ; that mad hoyden 
will never be quiet ; she provokes you excessively ; 
— and yet, she is a dear creature ; there is no meeting 
those laughing blue eyes of hers, without a smile, and 
an embrace ! 

It pleases you however to see the winning frankness, 
with which Madge always receives Will And with a 
little of your old vanity of observation, you trace out 
the growth of their dawning attachment. It provokes 
you, to find Nelly breaking up then- quiet tete-a-tefes 



What is Left. 2Y5 

with her provoking sallies ; and drawing away Will, 
to some saunter in the garden, or to some mad gallop 
over the hills. 

At length, upon a certain summer's day, Will, asks 
to see you. He approaches with a doubtful, and dis- 
turbed look ; you fear that wild Nell has been teasing 
him with her pranks. Yet he wears, not so much an 
offended look, as one of fear. You wonder if it ever 
happened to you, to carry your hat in just that timid 
manner, and to wear such a shifting expression of the 
eye, as poor Will, wears just now ? You wonder if it 
ever happened to you, to begin to talk with an old 
friend of your father's, in just that abashed way ? Will. 

must have fallen into some sad scrape. Well, he is 

a good fellow, and you will help him out of it ! 

You look up as he goes on with his story ; — you 
grow perplexed yourself; — you scarce believe your own 
ears. 

" Nelly ?"— Is Will, talking of Nelly ? 

" Yes, sir,— Nelly." 

" What ! — and you have told aU this to Nelly 

— that you love her ?" 

" I have, sir." 

" And she says " 



" That I must speak with you, sir." 
" Bless my soul ! — But she's a good girl ;" — and the 
old man wipes his eyes. 



276 Dream-Life, 



-" Nell !— are you there ?" 



And she comes, — blushing, lingering, yet smiling 
through it all. 

" And you could deceive your old father, Nell 

" (very fondly.) 



Nelly only clasps your hand in both of hers. 

" And so you loved Will., all the while ?" 

Nelly only stoops, to drop a Kttle kiss of plead- 
ing on your foi-ehead. 

"Well, Nelly" (it is hard to speak roundly), 

" give me your hand ; — here Will., — take it : — she's a 
wild girl ;— be kind to her, Will. ?" 

" God bless you, sir !" 

And Nelly throws herself, sobbing, upon your bosom. 

"Not here, — not here, now, Nell! — Will, is 

yonder !" 

Sobbing, sobbing still! Nelly, Nelly, — who 

would have thought that your merry face, covered such 
heart of tenderness ! 



III. 

Grief and Joy of Age. 

THE winter has its piercing storms, — even as 
Autumn hath. Hoary age, crowned with honor, 
and with years, bears no immunity from suffering. It 
is the common heritage of us all : if it come not in the 
spring, or in the summer of o.ur day, it will surely find 
us in the autumn, or amid the frosts of winter. It is 
the penalty humanity pays for pleasure ; human joys 
will have their balance. Nature never makes false 
weight. The east wind is followed by a wind from the 
west ; and every smile, will have its equivalent — in a 
tear ! 

You have lived long, and joyously, with that dear 
one, who has made your life — a holy pilgi-image. She 
has seemed to lead you into ways of pleasantness, and 



278 Dream-Life. 

has kindled in you — as the damps of the world came 
near to extinguish them, — those hopes and aspirations, 
which rest not in life, but soar to the realm of spirits. 

You have sometimes shuddered with the thought of 
parting ; you have trembled even at the leave-taking 
of a year, or — of months ; and have suffered bitterly, 
as some danger threatened a pai-ting — forever. That 
danger threatens now. Nor is it a sudden fear, to 
startle you into a paroxysm of dread — nothing of this. 
Nature is kinder, — or, she is le^s kind. 

It is a slow, and certain approach of danger, which 
you read in the feeble step, — in the wan eye, lighting 
up from time to time, into a brightness that seems no 
longer of this world. You read it in the new, and 
ceaseless attentions of the fond child who yet blesses 
your home ; and who conceals from you the bitterness 
of the coming grief. 

Frank is away — over seas ; and as the mother men- 
tions that name with a tremor of love, and of regi-et, 
that he is not now with you all, — you recal that other 
death, when you too, — were not there. Then you 
knew little of a parent's feeling ; — now, its intensity is 
pi'esent ! 

Day after day, as summer passes, she is ripening for 
that world where her faith, and her hope, have so long 
lived. Her pressure of your hand at some casual part- 



Grief and Joy of Age. 279 

ing for a day, is full of a gentle warning — as if she 
said — prepare for a longer adieu ! 

Her language too, without du-ect mention, steeps 
your thought in the bitter certainty that she foresees 
her approaching doom ; and that she dreads it, only so 
far as she dreads the gi'ief, that will be left in her 
broken home. Madge — the daughter, — ghdes tlii'ough 
the duties of that household, like an angel of mercy : 
she lingers at the sick bed — blessing, and taking bless- 
ings. 

The sun shines warmly without ; and through the 
open casement, beats warmly upon the floor within. 
The birds sing in the joyousness of full-robed simamer ; 
the drowsy hum of the bees, stealing sweets from the 
honeysuckle that bowers the window, lulls the air to a 
gentle quiet. Her breathing scarce breaks the summer 
stillness. Yet, she knows it is nearly over. Madge, 
too, — with features saddened, yet stAiggling against 
grief, — feels — that it is nearly over. 

It is very hard to think it ; — how much harder to 
know it ! But there is no mistaking her look now — so 
placid, so gentle, so resigned ! And her grasp of your 
hand — so warm — so full of meaning ! 

" Madge, Madge, must it be ?" And a pleasant 

smile lights her eye ; and her grasp is warmer ; and 
her look is — upward ! 



280 Dre am-Life. 



■" Must it, — must it be, dear Madge ? 



2"- 



holier smile, — loftier, — lit up of angels, beams on her 
faded features. The hand relaxes its clasp ; and you 
cling to it faster — harder ; — ^joined close to the frail 
wreck of your love ; — joined tightly — but oh, how far 
apart ! 

She is in Heaven ; — and you, struggling against the 
grief of a lorn, old man ! 

But sorrow, however great it be, must be subdued in 
the presence of a child. Its fevered outbursts must be 
kept for those silent hours, when no young eyes are 
watching, and no young hearts will " catch the trick of 
gi'ief." 

When the household is quiet, and darkened ; — when 
Madge is away from you, and your boy Frank slumber- 
ing — as youth slumbers upon sorrow ; — when you are 
alone with God, and the night, — in that room so long 
hallowed by her presence, but now — deserted — silent ; 
— ^then you may yield yourself to such frenzy of tears, 
as your strength will let you ! And in your solitary 
rambles through the churchyard, you can loiter of a 
summer's noon, over her fresh-made grave, and let your 
pent heart speak, and your spirit lean toward the Rest, 
where her love has led you ! 

Thornton — the clergyman, whose prayer over the 
dead, has dwelt with you, comes from time to time, to 



Grief and Jov of Age. 281 

light up your solitary hearth, with his talk of the Rest — 
for all men. He is youug, but his earnest, and gentle 
speech, win their way to your heart, and to your under- 
standing. You love his counsels ; you make of him a 
friend, whose visits are long, and often repeated. 

Frank only lingers for a while ; and you bid him 
again — adieu. It seems to you that it may well be 
the last ; and your blessing trembles on your lip. Yet 
you look not with dread, but rathei*, with a firm trust- 
fulness toward the day of the end. For your darhng 
Madge, it is true, yuu have anxieties ; you fear to leave 
her lonely in the world, Avith no protector save the 
wayward Frank. 

It is later August, when you call to Madge one day, to 
bring you the little escritoire, in which are your cherished 
papers ; — among them is your last will and testament. 
Thornton has just left you ; and it seems to you that 
his repeated kindnesses are deserving of some substantial 
mark of your regard. 

" Maggie" — you say, " Mr. Thornton has been very 
kind to me." 

"Very kind, father." 

" I mean to leave him here, some httle legacy, Mag- 
gie." 

" I would not, father." 

" But Madge, my daughter 1" 



282 Dream- Life. 

" He is not looking for such return, father." 

" But he has been very kind, Madge ; I must show 
him some strong token of my regard. What shall it 
be, Maggie ?" 

Madge hesitates ; — Madge blushes ; — Madge stoops 
to her father's ear, as if the very walls might catch the 
secret of her heart ; — " Would you give me to him, 
father V 

"But — my dear Madge — ^has he asked this?" 

" Eight months ago, papa." 

" And you told him " 

" That I would never leave you, so long as you 
lived !" 

"My own dear Madge, — come to me, — kiss 

me ! And you love him, Maggie ?" 

" With all my heart, sir." 

" So hke your mother, — the same figure, — the 

same true honest heart ! It shall be as you wish, dear 
Madge. Only, you will not leave me in my old age ; 
—Eh, Maggie ?" 

" Never, father, never." 

And there she leans upon his chair ; — her 



arm around the old man's neck, — her other hand 
clasped in his ; and her eyes melting with tenderness, 
as she gazes upon his aged face, — all radiant with joy, 
and with hope ! 



IV. 

The End of Dreams. 

A FEEBLE old man, and a young lady, who is just 
now blooming into the maturity of womanhood, 
are toiling up a gentle slope, where the spring sun lies 
warmly. The old man totters, though he leans heavily 
upon his cane ; and he pants, as he seats himself upon 
a mossy rock, that crowns the summit of the slope. 
As he recovers breath, he draws the hand of the lady in 
his, and with a trembling eagerness he points out an 
old mansion that hes below under the shadow of tall 

sycamores ; and he says — feebly and brokenly, 

" That is it, Maggie, — the old home, — the sycamores, — 

the gaiTet, — Charhe, — Nelly" 

The old man wipes his eyes. Then his hand shifts : 



284 DilBAM-LlFE. 

he seems gi-oping in darkness ; but soon it rests upon a 
little cottage below, heavily overshadowed : — - 

" That was it, Maggie : — Madge lived there — sweet 
Madge, — your mother," 

Again the old man wipes his eyes, and the lady 
turns away. 

Presently they walk down the hill together. They 
cross a little valley, with slow, faltering steps. The lady 
guides him carefully, until they reach a httle grave- 
yard. 

" This must be it, Maggie, but the fence is new. 
There it is Maggie, under the willow, — my poor 
mother's grave !" 

The lady weeps. 

" Thank you, Madge : you did not know her, but 
you weep for me : — God bless you !" 

The old man is in the midst of his household. It is 
some festive day. He holds feebly his place, at the 
head of the board. He utters in feeble tones — a 
Thanksgiving. 

His married Nelly is there, with two blooming 
children. Frank is there, with his bride. Madge — 
dearest of all, — is seated beside the old man, watchful 
of his comfort, and assisting him, as, with a shadowy 
dignity, he essays to do the honors of the board. 
The children prattle merrily : the elder ones talk of the 



The End of Dreams. 285 

days gone by; and the old man enters feebly— yet 
with floating ghmpses of glee, — into the cheer, and the 
rejoicings. 

Poor old man, he is near his tomb ! Yet his 

calm eye, looking upward, seems to show no fear. 

The same old man is in his chamber : he cannot 
leave his chair now. Madge is beside him : Nelly 
is there too, with her eldest-born. Madge has been 
reading to the old man : — it was a passage of promise 
— of the Bible promise. 

"A glorious promise,"— says the old man feebly. 

" A promise to me, — a promise to her — poor 

Madge !" 

" Is her picture there, Maggie ?" 

Madge brings it to him : he turns his head ; but the 
light is not strong. They wheel his chair to the 
window. The sun is shining brightly :— still the old 
man cannot see. 

" It is getting dark, Maggie." 

Madge looks at Nelly — wistfully — sadly. 

The old man murmurs something ; and Madge 

stoops : " Coming," he says " coming !" 

Nelly brings the little child to take his hand. 
Perhaps it will revive him. She lifts her boy to kiss 
his cheek. 



286 Dream-Life. 

The old man does not stir : his eyes do not move : — 
they seem fixed above. The child cries as his lips 

touch the cold cheek ; -It is a tender Spring 

flower, upon the bosom of the dying Winter ! 

The old man is gone: his dream life is 



ended. 



The End 



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